The Murray Basin in south-eastern Australia contains significant economic resources of heavy minerals (ilmenite, zircon, rutile) in coastal strandlines of a prograding sandplain that formed during marine regression in Late Miocene – Early Pliocene time. Deposits in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia have been mined or continue as a source of heavy mineral supply. Previous work has shown that the provenance of zircon occurring in these heavy mineral deposits is varied across the basin. This has implications for the theoretical reconstruction of coastal environments, and is a probable factor in the observed variation in composition and quality of heavy minerals between deposits. The provenance of heavy minerals in stranded coastal sands of the western Murray Basin in South Australia was assessed in this study by using zircon geochronology. Ten sites located along and across strandlines situated between Loxton and Karoonda were selected for analysis, with the samples supplied originating from recent company drilling of various heavy mineral prospects, and from mining operations at Mindarie. Zircons were analysed using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) and the crystallisation age was determined from the uranium/lead isotope ratios. Likely source regions and dispersion pathways for heavy minerals were interpreted from the age profile of zircon grains for each sample. All samples contained a high proportion of post Delamerian-age zircons, younger than c. 480 Ma, that originated from primary and secondary sources located to the north and east of the basin. These heavy mineral grains were transported to the former coast by rivers draining those particular regions. For the majority of samples, the dominant fluvial input came from the south-east, with a high proportion of zircons aged 350–440 Ma sourced from Lachlan Orogen granitoids. This is consistent with early establishment of an ancestral River Murray drainage system. A smaller zircon contribution from the north included a wide range of ages from various sources that reflect the confluence of an extensive drainage network, comparable to that of the present-day Darling River system. The proximal western basin margin of Adelaide Fold Belt metasediments and granite with pockets of Permian fluvio-glacial sediments was a less significant contributor of zircon. Sampled sediments with higher proportion of zircons derived from this source region were possibly deposited either during times of low fluvial input to the basin, or following a period of tectonic uplift on the western basin margin which led to increased erosion of basement rocks there. According to the findings of this study, the lithotype sources which fed zircon to heavy mineral deposits in the south-western region of the Murray Basin were both numerous and varied. The effects of these two factors are expected to have created increased complexity for, and a less predictable variation in, the composition and quality of heavy minerals that have been trapped in the strandline deposits which formed there.