[1] Quantifying long-term erosion of tropical shields is crucial to constraining the role of lateritic regolith covers as prominent sinks and sources of CO 2 and sediments in the context of long-term Cenozoic climate change. It is also a key to understanding long-term landform evolution processes operating over most of the continental surface and their control onto the sediment routing system. We study the surface evolution of West Africa over three erosion periods (~45-24,~24-11 and~11-0 Ma) recorded by relicts of three subcontinental-scale lateritic paleolandsurfaces whose age is bracketed by 39 Ar/ 40 Ar dating of lateritic K-Mn oxides. Denudation depths and rates compiled from 380 field stations show that despite heterogeneities confined to early-inherited reliefs, the subregion underwent low and homogeneous denudation (~2-20 m Ma -1 ) over most of its surface whatever the considered time interval. This homogeneity is further documented by a worldwide compilation of cratonic denudation rates, over long-term, intermediate and modern Cenozoic time scales (10 0 -10 7 yr). These results allow defining a steady state cratonic denudation regime that is weatheringlimited, i.e., controlled by the thickness of the (lateritic) regolith available for stripping. Steady state cratonic denudation regimes are enabled by maintained compartmentalization of the base levels between river knick points controlled by relief inheritance. Under such regimes, lowering of base levels and their fossilization are primarily imposed by long-term eustatic sea level fall and climate rather than by epeirogeny. The expression of steady state cratonic denudation regimes in clastic sedimentary fluxes remains to be investigated.

[1] Chemical weathering and mechanical erosion are first-order processes of long-term tropical morphogenesis, which is still poorly deciphered for lack of time constraints. We address this issue by laser probe 39 Ar age groups with d 18 O and eustatic curves allow definition of the different stages of morphogenesis. Paleocene-Eocene ages (59-45 Ma) bracket a greenhouse period propitious to bauxitic weathering. The lack of significant ages between $45 and 29 Ma characterizes a period dominated by mechanical erosion, during which detrital sediments, including lateritic materials, were accumulated in intracratonic basins allowing the exhumation of a new lateritic landsurface. Two major weathering periods separated by a second erosion episode (24-18 Ma) are also depicted at the end of Oligocene (29-24 Ma) and lower to mid-Miocene (18-11.5 Ma) in the upper domain, during which newly shaped land surfaces conspicuously weathered. The shorter-weathering and erosion episodes recorded in the lower domain from $18 to $2.9 Ma led to the final geomorphic changes that were conducive to the formation of glacis. The preservation of old cryptomelane (59-45 Ma) in the upper part of the ore deposit indicates a Cenozoic denudation limited to the erosion of previous bauxites, and partly, of ferricretes.

Long-term (10 6-7 yr) clastic sedimentary fluxes to the ocean provide first-order constraints on the response of continental surfaces to both tectonic and climatic forcing as well as the supply that builds the stratigraphic record. Here, we use the dated and regionally correlated relict lateritic landforms preserved over Sub-Saharan West Africa to map and quantify regional denudation as well as the export of main catchments for three time intervals . At the scale of West Africa, denudation rates are low (ca. 7 m Myr À1 ) and total clastic export rate represents 18.5 9 10 3 km 3 Myr À1 . Export rate variations among the different drainage groups depend on the drainage area and, more importantly, rock uplift. Denuded volumes and offshore accumulations are of the same magnitude, with a noticeably balanced budget between the Niger River delta and its catchment. This supports the establishment of the modern Niger catchment before 29 Ma, which then provided sufficient clastic material to the Niger delta by mainly collecting the erosion products of the Hoggar hotspot swell. Accumulations on the remaining Equatorial Atlantic margin of Africa suggest an apparent export deficit but the sediment budget is complicated by the low resolution of the offshore data and potential lateral sediment supply from the Niger delta. Further distortion of the depositional record by intracontinental transient storage and lateral input or destabilization of sediments along the margin may be identified in several locations, prompting caution when deducing continental denudation rates from accumulation only.

Reconstructing the evolving geometry of large river catchments over geological time scales is crucial to constraining yields to sedimentary basins. In the case of Africa, it should further help deciphering the response of large cratonic sediment routing systems to Cenozoic growth of the basin-and-swell topography of the continent. Mapping of dated and regionally correlated lateritic paleolandscape remnants complemented by onshore sedimentological archives allows the reconstruction of two physiographic configurations of West Africa in the Paleogene. Those reconstructions show that the geometry of the drainage is stabilized by the late early Oligocene (29 Ma) and probably by the end of the Eocene (34 Ma), allowing to effectively link the inland morphoclimatic record to offshore sedimentation since that time, particularly in the case of the Niger catchment-delta system. Mid-Eocene paleogeography reveals the antiquity of the Senegambia catchment back to at least 45 Ma and suggests that a marginal upwarp forming a continental divide preexisted early Oligocene connection of the Niger and Volta catchments to the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Such a drainage rearrangement was primarily enhanced by the topographic growth of the Hoggar hot spot swell and caused a stratigraphic turnover along the Equatorial margin of West Africa.

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Since Deccan Traps extrusion ~ 65 Ma ago, thick weathering mantles have developed over Peninsular India on both the western coastal lowland and adjacent plateau separated by the Western Ghats Escarpment. Manganiferous lateritic profiles formed by supergene weathering of Late Archean manganiferous protores are exposed on paleolandsurface remnants on both sides of the escarpment. Petrological and geochemical characterizations of samples from those Mn lateritic profiles allowed identifying cryptomelane (K-Mn oxide) dated by 40 Ar/ 39 Ar geochronology. The ages obtained document major weathering periods, ca. 53-50 Ma, and ca. 37-23 Ma in the highland, and ca. 47-45 Ma, ca. 24-19 Ma and discrete weathering pulses at ~ 9 Ma and ~ 2.5 Ma in the lowland. Old ages of the highland (53-50 Ma) and the lowland (47-45 Ma) indicate synchronous lateritic weathering across the escarpment at a time the peninsula started to drift across the equatorial belt. Intense weathering periods at ca. 53-45 and ca. 37-23 Ma are interpreted to reflect the Early Eocene climatic optimum and the onset of Asian monsoon regimes, respectively. The ages further indicate that most of the dissection of the highland must have taken place after ~ 23 Ma, whereas the lowland was weakly incised essentially after ~ 19 Ma. Our results also document divergent erosion and weathering histories of the lowland and the highland after the Eocene, suggesting installation of a dual climatic regime across the Western Ghats escarpment.

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