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REVIEWS

Dérive des Continents, Paléoclimats et Altérations Tropicales [Continental Drift, Paleoclimates and Tropical Weathering]. YVES TARDY AND CLAUDE ROQUIN. Pp. 473. Editions BRGM, 3 avenue de Claude Guillemin, BP 6009, 45060 Orléans cedex 2, France. 1998. Price unknown.

Laterites have developed essentially from long-term exposure of cratonic rock areas to the atmosphere and hydrosphere under tropical conditions. During the last decade, increasing interest has focused on laterite dynamics, based on previously well-established mineralogic and petrological investigations throughout the tropical belt. To understand laterite dynamics from the landscape scale to the mineral scale, scientists need to quantify chemical weathering and physical processes involved in the genesis and transformation of laterites as functions of time and climate changes.

Because of the long-term life of these geologic and pedological formations, laterites are believed to constitute paleoclimatic records with regard to their worldwide distribution relative to the present-day and past geographic setting . . . [Full Text of this Article]