Abstract Understanding of the incompatibility of King’s three-fold classification of the Proterozoic (‘Purana’) rocks of the Pranhita–Godavari Valley, south India, and renewed mapping and stratigraphic studies, reveal that syn-depositional basin dynamics, with differential uplift and subsidence, was the major control on basin evolution and the development of multiple unconformity-bound successions. The unconformities demarcate six major successions, the Mallampalli/Devalmari, Somanpalli, Mulug, Penganga, Albaka and Sullavai groups, each with a very distinctive set of sedimentological attributes. There are at least five different conflicting classification schemes so far. The major problems in the classification of the succession appear to lie in the recognition of unconformities and unconformity-bound successions, and in stratigraphic nomenclature. Based on field geology, available age data and the concept of the megasequence, the Mallampali, Devalmari, Mulug and Somanpalli groups have been grouped into the Pakhal Supergroup. The question of combining the rest of the groups has been deferred until the resolution of the Albaka–Penganga relationship is achieved beyond doubt. The relationships between different stratigraphic units have been critically examined to reconstruct the stratigraphic history, events of sea-level change and palaeogeographical evolution.

Abstract There are three large intracratonic basins (Vindhyan, Cuddapah and Chattisgarh) and several smaller basins (Kaladgi, Bhima, Pakhal, Penganga, Indravati, Khariar, Sabari and Kolhan) covering a large part of peninsular India. They are not known to host any significant metallic resource – except for a substantial uranium resource and Pb–Zn sulphide mineralization in the Cuddapah Basin, uranium in Bhima and Kaladgi basins and manganese in the Penganga sequence – but are nevertheless the repository of vast resources of industrial rocks (limestone, dolomite, phosphorite, aluminous laterite, building materials) and minerals (including pyrite, barite and diamond) in the country. The temporal distribution of these resources indicates a Mesoproterozoic age for all the deposits and occurrences except the uranium deposits in the Vempalle dolostones in the southwestern fringe of the Cuddapah Basin, which are Palaeoproterozoic in age. The Cuddapah Basin is the most intensely mineralized Proterozoic basin, with the Cumbum Formation in the Nallamalai belt hosting stratabound base metals and barite, dated c. 1.6 Ga, all the way from north to south. Potential mineralization, still undiscovered in the basin, is a large SEDEX-type Pb–Zn orebody in the vicinity of the Mangampet barite deposit and unconformity-proximal U deposits in the Kurnool Group, similar to those of the Bhima Basin.