LATERITE

Laterite

Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock. Tropical weathering is a prolonged process of chemical weathering which produces a wide variety in the thickness, grade, chemistry and ore mineralogy of the resulting soils. The majority of the land area containing laterites is between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

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laterite

Noun

  1. A red hard or gravel-like soil or subsoil formed in the tropics that has been leached of soluble minerals leaving insoluble iron and aluminium oxides and hydroxides; used to make bricks and roads.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: laterite
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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