The UG1 Footwall unit is a layered pyroxenite-norite-leuconorite-anorthosite sequence between the Middle Group 4 and Upper Group 1 chromitites of the Upper Critical Zone, and is c. 300 m thick at Rustenburg Platinum Mines, Union Section, where it shows an oscillatory fluctuation in whole-rock Mg/(Mg + Fe), Cr/Co, Ni/V and Fe/Ti ratios with stratigraphic height. This permits subdivision into 8 sub-cycles which match a subdivision based on cyclical variations in orthopyroxene and feldspar compositions. Constituent pyroxene grains of pyroxenites, norites and leuconorites alike contain rounded and embayed plagioclase inclusions in abundance. Sr-isotope disequilibrium prevails in some samples between the orthopyroxene and feldspar populations. Chemical and isotopic data support a model of pulsatory injection of limited volumes of a more primitive, mafic liquid into a resident column of depleted residua, from which sodic labradorite and Mg-poor bronzite were crystallizing. The depleted liquid is equated with the supernatant liquid residuum of buried cumulates (Sr_i c. 0.7054) and the primitive liquid with magma parental to the UG1-UG2 lineage (Sr_i ⩾ 0.7068). The increase in leucocratic character of the 300 m column, with height, is attributed to the rising of low-density liquids enriched in the components of feldspar during separation of the pyroxenites. Deposition of the UG1 chromitite layers is attributed to mixing of a major influx of primitive liquid with a feldspathic residuum at the top of the UG1 Footwall unit. There is no evidence to indicate the participation of a discrete A-type liquid (Irvine and Sharpe, 1982) in this process.