Here the soil regolith and rock configuration is more complex with Cenozoic
duricrusts (variably cemented palaeo-Shoalhaven River alluvium) forming resistant crestal landforms overlying deeply weathered, bedded and fractured metasedimentary rock.
Of potential relevance to the WA wheatbelt situation is widespread active silicification in shallow calcrete aquifers documented from central Australia by English (2001, 2002), a case of contemporary primary salinity rather than palimpsest
duricrusts or secondary processes caused by land clearing.
Plinthite, once it has irreversibly cemented as a result of cycles of humidity and dryness, is known as petroplinthite (comparable to the terms "ferruginous crusts" used by French soil scientists and "
duricrusts" used by Australian ones).
For instance, the international literature records terms such as laterite, petroferric contact, ferricrete, cuirasse,
duricrusts, iron crusts, ironstones, ironpans, pisoliths, pisoplinthite, iron concretions and nodules.
Sauer D, Stein C, Glatzel S, Kuhn J, Zarei M, Stahr K (2015)
Duricrusts in soils of the Alentejo (southern Portugal)--types, distribution, genesis and time of their formation.
2000) of catenary sequences of soil profiles describe upper slopes with typical lateritic soil profiles (Oxisols or Ferralsols) that have originated from the alteration of lateritic
duricrusts developed from underlying sedimentary rocks (sandstones, mudstones, and siltstones from the Mesozoic Upper Bauru Group).