Lateritic deposit

Ore deposit

Long weathering in hot lands with heavy rains and dry seasons leaches everything soluble out of the ground and leaves iron, aluminium, nickel and cobalt behind: bauxite over many rocks, nickel laterite over ultramafic rock, iron-rich hard crusts.

Where

Tropical Rainforest / Tropical Dry Forest / Savanna

Rocks

Laterite, Bauxite, Garnierite, Limonite, Peridotite

Minerals

Gibbsite, Boehmite, Diaspore, Goethite, Hematite, Heterogenite, Manganite

Metals

Aluminum, Cobalt, Iron, Manganese, Nickel

Worked

Before and since the industrial age

Examples

New Caledonia nickel, from the end of the nineteenth century; Northern Ireland, once a source of iron and aluminium; Angkor, Cambodia, built of laterite blocks after 1000 AD

Sources

• Laterite. Wikipedia.

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