Characterization and evolution of primary and secondary laterites in northwestern Bengal Basin, West Bengal, India

It is quite impossible to travel far in India without observing the remarkable ferruginous crust to which Buchanan in 1807 gave the name of laterite. In Indian peninsula, it is a post-Cretaceous stratigraphic succession with a polycyclic nature of evolution which marks the unconformity with recent Quaternary alluvium. There are perennial problems and research gaps in the investigation of laterites in India as well as in West Bengal: (1) defining, identifying and classifying lateritic materials, (2) mode of formation of laterite and its other horizons, (3) determining the ages of laterites, (4) reliability of laterites as palaeoclimatic indicators, (5) identifying topographic requirements and pedogeomorphic processes for laterite formation, and (6) reconstructions of former lateritized landscapes. The formation of north‒south lateritic hard crust (i.e. Rarh Bengal) on the Rajmahal Basalt Traps, Archean granite‒gneiss, Gondwana sediments, Paleogene gravels and older deltaic alluvium is analyzed here to resolve the aforesaid problems and to depict the variable characteristics of laterites with special reference to its tectono-climatic evolution in the northwestern marginal part of Bengal Basin. This paper reveals that the low-level secondary laterites (probably the Pliocene‒Early Pleistocene age) of Rarh Bengal are composed of heterogeneous Fe‒Al rich gravelly materials which were derived from the high-level primary laterites (probably the Eocene‒Miocene age) of plateau since the Paleogene Period by the peninsular river system, following the underlying structure of Bengal Basin. Alongside the roles of drifting of Indian Plate, establishment of monsoon climate, neo-tectonic uplifts and re-lateritization of ferruginous shelf deposits are determined here to unearth the palaeogenesis of primary and secondary laterites in West Bengal.