Late Archaean granitic rocks from the southern Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia have a close temporal relationship to the basaltic and komatiitic volcanism which occurs within spatially associated greenstone belts. Greenstone volcanism apparently began ∼2715 Ma ago, whereas voluminous felsic magmatism (both extrusive and intrusive) began about 2690 Ma ago. A brief but voluminous episode of crust-derived magmatism ∼2690–2685 Ma ago resulted in the emplacement of a diverse assemblage of plutons having granodioritic, monzogranitic and tonalitic compositions. This early felsic episode was followed immediately by the emplacement of mafic sills, and, after a further time delay, by a second episode...