Trilobites from the Soom Shale, Cedarberg Formation, of the Table Mountain Group, South Africa, have been identified as Mucronaspis olini Temple, indicating a latest Ordovician (Rawtheyan–Hirnantian) age. This new data is taken as an opportunity to present new records of some non age-diagnostic brachiopods and molluscs from the area, and also to review the substantial shelly fauna from the overlying Disa Member of the Cedarberg Formation. It is concluded that that fauna is of Hirnantian age and not early Llandovery as stated by some previous authors.

Radiometric dates on specimens of plutons of the Coastal Cordillera of Atacama span the period 300–110 Ma. A group of dates cluster around 190 Ma and evidence is presented which strongly suggests that they represent near crystallization ages. The geographic distribution of these plutons, adjacent to Liassic tuffs and lavas (Pan de Azúcar and Posada de los Hidalgo formations), suggests a genetic relationship between them, and that the plutons were the roots of the Lower Jurassic volcanic chain. The location of these granitoids to the west of the Liassic volcanic rocks, favours a previous idea that the Liassic basin extended eastwards as a back-arc or intra-arc basin. The host rocks to the Lower Jurassic plutons include Palaeozoic granitoids and metasedimentary rocks, indicating that the volcanic chain was founded on continental crust. The distance from the Liassic plutons to the present-day trench is less than 100 km, which indicates the possibility that part of the arc-trench system of that time is missing.

New K–Ar mineral dates from calc-alkaline granitoids of the Archipiélago Cabo de Hornos, in the southernmost tip of South America, range from 97 to 117 Ma. This confirms that the early Cretaceous was a period of major plutonic activity in the region and expands previous radiometric information on the Patagonian Batholith concerning migration of intrusion foci with time.

The first occurrence of Early Paleozoic land plants is reported from South Africa. The plant remains are small, compact tetrahedral spore tetrads. They occur abundantly in the Soom Shale Member of the Cedarberg Formation, Table Mountain Group. Marine? phytoplankton (sphaeromorphs or leiospheres) occur with the spore tetrads in all samples. Rare chitinozoans are found in half the samples. Together with similar spore tetrads from the Paraná Basin (Gray et al. 1985) these are the first well-documented records of Ashgill and/or earlier Llandovery land plants from the Malvinokaffric Realm, and from the African continent south of Libya. These spore tetrads have botanical, evolutionary, and biogeographic significance. Their size in comparison with spore tetrads from stratigraphic sections throughout eastern North America, suggests that an earliest Llandovery age is more probable for the Soom Shale Member, although a latest Ordovician age cannot be discounted. The age of the brachiopods in the overlying Disa Siltstone Member has been in contention for over a decade. Both Ashgillian and Early Llandovery ages have been proposed. The age of the underlying Soom Shale Member based on plant spores and trilobites (earliest Llandovery or latest Ashgillian) suggests that the Disa Siltstone Member is also likely to be of Early Llandovery age, although the distance between the Soom Shale Member spore-bearing locality and rocks to the south yielding abundant invertebrate body fossils at one locality is great enough to permit diachroneity.