Sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP) U–Pb analyses of monazite and zircon from the Harts Range indicate the southeastern Arunta Inlier has been affected by two major Palaeozoic tectonothermal events. During the early Ordovician (467 ± 8 Ma), regional deformation produced a sub-horizontal upper amphibolite-facies (> 700°C and 7 kbar) shear fabric that overprinted c. 800°C migmatitic assemblages. In the intracratonic Amadeus Basin south of the Harts Range region, subsidence rates increased in the early Ordovician with the accumulation of easterly, and southerly, derived mature sediments. This is contrary to what would be expected if deformation in the Harts Range region occurred in a compressional setting, and suggests that the early Ordovician deformation may have occurred in an extensional intraplate setting. The terrain remained at depth until the mid-Carboniferous when up to 20 km of exhumation occurred during the latter stages of the intracratonic Devonian to Carboniferous (400–300 Ma) Alice Springs Orogeny. Monazite U–Pb data indicates the structurally lowest parts of the terrain were at c. 6 bar and ≥c. 600°C at 343 ± 8 Ma, and subsequently underwent high-temperature decompression, resulting in overprinting of the kyanite-grade assemblages with sillimanite-bearing assemblages during south-directed thrusting. During exhumation, pegmatite emplaced in the southeastern Harts Range at 330 ± 6 Ma (zircon U–Pb) was strongly deformed at temperatures around 560°C and depths around 15 km. The U–Pb data from the Harts Range indicate that the record of intraplate deformation in central Australia was more complex than previously thought.

Until recently it has been widely accepted that protoliths to metasediments of the Harts Range Metamorphic Complex (central Australia) were deposited prior to c. 1.75 Ga and form part of the Palaeoproterozoic Arunta Inlier. However, new sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe U-Pb analyses of detrital zircon, together with recently published data, suggest that they were deposited coeval with c. 545-520 Ma sediments from the adjacent, little metamorphosed Neoproterozoic to Palaeozoic Centralian Superbasin. Protoliths of the Harts Range Metamorphic Complex were deposited in the Irindina sub-basin, an early-to mid-Cambrian rift located between the present-day Amadeus and Georgina Basin remnants of the Centralian Superbasin. Deposition occurred during a widespread and long-lived interval of extension in parts of central Australia associated with eruption of the voluminous Kalkarinji Continental Flood Basalts. The Harts Range Metamorphic Complex was metamorphosed to upper amphibolite-to granulite-facies conditions within c. 40 Ma of deposition of its sedimentary protoliths.

Monazite electron microprobe U–Th–Pb and garnet Sm–Nd isotopic data from metapelitic assemblages in the Willyama Supergroup in the southern Curnamona Province, south‐central Australia, indicate that the terrain underwent regional greenschist to amphibolite‐grade metamorphism during the c. 500 Ma Delamerian Orogeny. The Delamerian‐aged mineral assemblages include prograde garnet–staurolite and kyanite‐bearing associations that overprint andalusite‐ and sillimanite‐bearing assemblages that are interpreted to have developed during the c. 1600 Ma Olarian Orogeny. Importantly, the development of secondary kyanite‐bearing assemblages in the southern Curnamona Province has been used previously to suggest that the Olarian Orogeny followed an anticlockwise P–T evolution. If such assemblages are the product of c. 500 Ma metamorphism, then the anticlockwise P–T path is an apparent path, due to the overprint of a distinct metamorphic cycle c. 1100 Ma later. Making such distinctions is therefore extremely important when using the textural and metamorphic evolution of polycyclic terrains to model the thermal behaviour of the crust during orogeny. This study highlights the utility of in situ geochronology, linking age data to petrologically important phases and assemblages.