The Ayia Varvara Formation is a wedge of amphibole schists and intercalated metasediments within the intensely deformed pre-upper Maastrichtian volcanosedimentary Mamonia Complex. All contacts are steep faults against Upper Triassic transitional to alkaline lavas with reefoidal limestones, subalkaline depleted Troodos-type lavas, and serpentinised harzburgite. Ophiolite-related metamorphics are believed to have been formed by dynamothermal processes, beneath young oceanic crust during emplacement. Characteristically, such rocks might be expected to show a decrease of metamorphic grade away from the contact. Mineral analyses from the Ayia Varvara metamorphics, however, show no systematic variations that would indicate a metamorphic gradient. Hornblende remains generally calcic and of tschermakitic hornblende composition with an almost complete substitution of Mg and Fe 2+, suggesting disequilibrium. Plagioclase is essentially albitic and remains so for a distance of some 800 m from the harzburgite contact. Trace element analyses of the amphibolites and surrounding extrusives define four lava types. Types 1–3 are transitional to alkaline intraplate lavas believed to be remnants of intraoceanic islands and atolls. Type 4-lavas are extremely depleted in the HFS elements and are very similar to the Arakapas transform-fault lavas. The amphibolites have, in part, a trace-element geochemistry that is close to mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB), a type that has not previously been recorded from Cyprus. The small area around Ayia Varvara records a long and complicated tectonic history that provides an insight into the evolution and emplacement of the Troodos ophiolite. The Mamonia Complex is interpreted as a passive margin sequence with intra-oceanic islands that was accreted onto a Late Cretaceous north-dipping subduction zone. Suprasubduction spreading produced the Troodos ophiolite and associated fracture zones. Spreading and subduction ceased in the late Maastrichtian when the newly-formed Troodos crust underwent a 90° anticlockwise rotation which juxtaposed Mamonia and Troodos (Arakapas) fracture zone rocks along arcuate, steep, strike-slip faults. At least some of the Ayia Varvara metamorphic rocks most likely represent Triassic oceanic crust and sediments metamorphosed during subduction by the overriding young Troodos crust.