South Australia has had a very long geological history traceable back for over 2000 million years. It has areas of ancient basement rocks and of younger rocks representing most of the geological column, which are exposed at the surface or have been revealed by deep drilling in exploration for minerals, petroleum and artesian groundwater. This handbook is intended as a guide to the geology of the State, and has been compiled from the work of many geologists involved in producing maps for the Geological Survey of South Australia. The mineral resources information has been compiled as extracts from either the SA Department of Mines and Energy' Mineral Information Series of publications, or from contributions to the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy published monographs on economic geology.