The Point Macquarie–Tacking Point coastline provides excellent exposures of the accretionary subduction complex and younger magmatic arc rocks that make up much of the New England Fold Belt (also known as the New England Orogen) in north-eastern New South Wales. Nine geological units, including six formally defined here (Port Macquarie Serpentinite, Rocky Beach Metamorphic Mélange, Tacking Point Gabbro, Town Beach Diorite, Nobbys Beach Lamprophyre and Sea Acres Dolerite), have been identified along this coastal tract.

The Karikeree Metadolerite has been redefined. The oldest rocks are prograde lawsonite eclogite and retrograde blueschist blocks embedded in the chlorite–actinolite schist matrix of the Rocky Beach Metamorphic Mélange that occurs as a slab within the Port Macquarie Serpentinite. The Port Macquarie Serpentinite is a product of alteration of cumulate ultramafic rocks of a c.530 Ma forearc ophiolite.

The Watonga Formation is a mostly broken formation that consists of Middle–Late Ordovician pelagic rocks, the mafic oceanic substrate on which these were deposited; younger basalt and olistostromes of probable ocean island origin; and tuff, siltstone and sandstone inferred to be trench fill accreted in the Late Ordovician–Carboniferous interval. Later intrusive rocks of probable Permian age are the geochemically similar Tacking Point Gabbro, Town Beach Diorite, Karikeree Metadolerite and Nobbys Beach Lamprophyre that are possibly related to the Clarence River Supersuite of the New England Batholith.

Uncommon felsic dykes are considered minor components of the Middle Triassic leucoadamellite suite of the New England Batholith. Littlealtered dykes of Sea Acres Dolerite, characterised by high Ti, Fe and Zr, are Late Triassic or younger.