Abstract: The hydraulic fracturing is a promising technology for developing shale oil and gas. The supercritical carbon dioxide fracturing fluid can avoid shale reservoir damage as the non-aqueous working fluid, which has the potential to increase continental shale oil and gas production. To study the supercritical carbon dioxide fracturing characteristics and permeability improvement of continental shale, experiments were performed on Yanchang formation shale samples under different conditions of stress and fracturing fluid flow rate. The characteristics of tested shale's three-dimensional fracture distribution, fracture volume, and fracture width were obtained by CT scanning techniques. The results show that the shale breakdown pressure of continental shale increases with the increase of the injection rate of supercritical carbon dioxide fracturing fluid, and the relationship between them is approximately exponential. The average width of shale fractures also increases with the improvement of fracturing fluid rate, which is more conducive to gas migration. The shale CT reconstructions show the fracture morphology and distribution in three dimensions. The formed fractures' permeability improvement is about 10⁵~10⁶ order of magnitudes. The results are of great significance for understanding the supercritical carbon dioxide fracturing characteristics and permeability enhancement degree in continental shale and providing a reference for the simulation study and construction design of continental shale reservoir fracturing.