Plagiogranites occur mainly as intrusive bodies and tectonic inclusions within mafic and ultramafic members of the Coolac ophiolite suite. Quartz diorites and trondhjemites appear to represent localized late-stage felsic differentiates of subalkaline tholeiitic magma, with their formation dominantly controlled by fractionation of hornblende and plagioclase. Albitites are interpreted as altered equivalents of quartz diorites and trondhjemites. Chemical data, while emphasizing the similarity of these rocks to ‘oceanic plagiogranite', also indicate that variation in the latter may be broader than previously defined. The Coolac rocks show less marked Fe-enrichment, higher Ni and Cr, and lower Y and Zr than many ophiolitic plagiogranites. These data are consistent with weak calc-alkaline tendencies demonstrated in the Coolac ophiolite suite.

Rb-Sr whole-rock isochron ages of 443 ± 30 Ma, 449 ± 42 Ma and 489 ± 14 Ma with initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.70669 ± 0.00068, 0.70599 ± 0.00035 and 0.70658 ± 0.00025 were obtained, respectively, for the Cape Maclear granite, the surrounding Cape Maclear syenite and the Senga Bay granitic body. The results confirm previous estimates of the age of the post-Mozambiquian Lake Malawi Granitic Province, of which these plutons are part. Data from the Dzalanyama granite have excess scatter, but indicate an Irumide age of about 1000 Ma. This batholith is therefore much older than the Lake Malawi Granitic Province but much younger than the Nyika granite of northern Malawi, contrary to earlier suggestions. The porphyritic foliated granite of Mcezi Hill gave an age of 1016 ± 55 Ma and an initial ratio of 0.70522 ± 0.00084. Irumide plutonism in the region includes several dissimilar groups of intrusions, all with low initial87Sr/86Sr ratios. The Irumide age of the Dzalanyama granite makes it possible that the metasediments of the Mchinji Group are wholly post-Ubendian.

A water saturated melt was developed in the semipelitic Leven Schist in contact with the kentallenitic basic rocks of the Barnamuc intrusion. The partly melted rock consisted of a small volume of granitic melt with relict refractory quartz grains and layers of aluminosilicates. This material could be mobilized and mixed with phenocryst-bearing magma. Sheets of country rock breccia are associated with the mobilization and veins of breccia and mobilized hornfels invade the intrusion. Sheets of igneous rock occur along the contact zone and their emplacement is related to the mobilization of the hornfels. Loss of cohesion between solid country rock and crystallized outer parts of the plug leads to collapse and removal of early formed igneous rocks, accounting for the lack of chilled margins in some intrusions.

The Devonian brachiopod Tropidoleptus is recognized for the first time in South Africa. It is present in the lower part of the Witteberg Group at four widely separated localities. Data regarding the stratigraphical range of the genus elsewhere, combined with information on recently described fossil plants and vertebrates from underlying strata of the upper Bokkeveld Group, suggest that a Frasnian or even Givetian age is reasonable for the lower part of the Witteberg Group. The recognition of Tropidoleptus in a shallow water, near-shore, molluscan association, at the top of the South African marine Devonian sequence, is similar to its occurrence in Bolivia, and suggests a common Malvinokaffric Realm history of shallowing, prior to later Devonian or early Carboniferous non-marine sedimentation. It is noteworthy that Tropidoleptus is now known to occur in ecologically suitable environments around the Atlantic, but is absent from these same environments in Asia and Australia. Tropidoleptus is an excellent example of dispersal in geological time — first appearing in northern Europe and Nova Scotia, then elsewhere in eastern North America and North Africa, followed by South America and South Africa, while continuing in North America.

The surface geologic map of the Wadi El Rayan area, based on the study of aerial photographs and field observations, is correlated with seismic structural two-way time maps for the basement, the top of Cenomanian and the base of Tertiary horizons. Major structural features comprise a northeasterly faulted plunging anticlinal stretch traversing the NW-SE Wadi El Rayan depression. Three sets (ENE-WSW, NW-SE and NE-SW) of faults dissect the area. Folding movement was still active at least to the end of Middle Eocene epoch. ENE-WSW faults affecting the basement, and traced in higher levels, have the same trend as the fold axes. It is thus possible that compressional features appearing on the surface and subsurface horizons are in part due to thrusting in deeper levels that took place parallel to folding.

Sedimentary and volcanic rocks, now unrepresented in surface exposure, occur as xenoliths in the kimberlite of the Koidu District of eastern Sierra Leone. The sedimentary rocks prove, on micropalaeontological evidence, to have Lower Palaeozoic stratigraphic age. An eastern extension of the Ordovician/Silurian marine transgression on to the Leo Uplift of the West African Craton of some 200 km is indicated. The volcanic rocks may belong to the same cycle of surface rock generation or relate to the younger, widespread, Triassic magmatic event.

The marine Maentwrog Beds comprise a repetition of sand and mud facies and follow a non-sequence. A shallow water depositional environment is inferred from the nature of the basal unit (with stromatolites and intraformational conglomerate), and hummocky cross-stratification and mud-draped erosion surfaces. The bulk of the formation was deposited between fair weather and storm wave base, the sand facies representing storm depositional events.