DID THE ALKALINE GUT OF TERMITES CREATE LATOSOLS (ULTISOLS and OXISOLS), BAUXITES, AND LATERITES?
by Charles Weber, MS ABSTRACT It is proposed here that the laterization of tropical soils, whereby silica is leached out to leave iron and aluminum hydroxides behind, is caused by a high alkalinity past the mid gut of soil eating termites. It is suggested that this alkalinity first arose primarily in order to make phosphate available to the termites and it resulted in laterites, bauxites, glauconite, and diatom rise especially in early Cretaceous DISCUSSION The humus eating termites, which make up over half of the termite species [Brune & Kuhl, 1996], must have to solve the problem of binding of phosphorus by iron and aluminum in soil. They may have done this by creating an alkaline medium in their gut. The humus eating termites create an alkaline pH of 11 to 12.5 just past the mid gut-hindgut junction (the P1 segment) [Bignell, 1998 (there are diagrams of the various gut designs of termites here)]. It is said that this is the highest pH in the biological world. It was obtained using m
