Sub‐basaltic weathering, damsites, palaeomagnetism, and the age of lateritization

Abstract

Investigations described from three Victorian damsites indicate that weathering of Ordovician bedrock is increased where it is overlain by basalt, even though the basalt is little weathered. Sub‐basaltic weathering may account for the fact that weathered rock beneath a Jurassic lava flow gives a weathering remagnetization age of Mid‐Cainozoic, consistent with palaeomagnetically determined ages of lateritization from elsewhere in Australia.