There are many similarities and dissimilarities between the currently studied Ga’ara ironstones and the Hussainiyat ironstones studied by Al-Bassam and Tamar-Agha (1998), both located in the Western Desert of Iraq and separated by about 50–75 km (Fig. 1; Table 6). In addition to the age difference, the main difference is the existence of concretionary ironstone type in Hussainiyat which is absent in Ga’ara. The lateritic origin of the pisolitic–oolitic and massive ironstones of the Hussainiyat ironstone was highlighted by Al-Bassam and Tamar-Agha (1998) which seem not to be the case for Ga’ara ironstone although minor postdepositional lateritization effect cannot be ruled out. Free alumina was detected only in one of the studied samples, the pisolites of sample Ni/1 (Table 1) which is taken from the pisolitic ironstone lenses that is directly overlain unconformably by Mulussa Formation in Al-Nijili locality (Fig. 1).