In areas of tropical weathering the development of a thick extensive mantle is a major obstacle in the application of geochemical exploration methods using media such as soil or stream sediments. The combined effects of deep lateritic weathering and differential erosion processes lead to a great variety of materials exposed at the land surface. Consequently, depending on the nature and degree of evolution of the facies sampled, the geochemical signal reflecting characteristic features of parent rocks and mineralization may be altered in different ways. In this paper, the results of a detailed multielement geochemical survey near the village of Dagadamou, southern Mali, are presented as an example of exploration in tropical terrain. About 1000 samples were collected over an area of 25 km 2 on a regular sampling grid of 100 × 200 m, and analyzed by plasma emission spectrometry for major and trace elements. The main geochemical differentiation trend corresponds to the opposite variation of SiO 2 and Fe-Al contents, and reflects the nature of the sampled material. This factor also reflects the relative amounts of quartz, kaolinite, gibbsite, goethite and hematite, estimated after normative calculations. Ferricrete samples with high Al and Fe contents are also enriched in trace elements P, V, Cr, As, Mo, Nb and Cu, which are retained in the weathering profile bound on secondary Fe oxihydroxide minerals. On the other hand, silt-clay soils developed on flat areas, are mainly composed of quartz and kaolinite extracted from deeper zones of the weathering profile by termite activity and further accumulated in the topographic depressions; such soils also contain concentrations of heavy minerals characterized by high Zr, Ti, Y and Ce contents. Further leaching of clay particles is marked by a quartz- and Zr-rich halo at the footslope of the ferricrete plateau. Gritty layer derived from the dismantling of ferricrete, which normally occurs on slopes, have intermediate compositions, and are relatively enriched in Al, kaolinite and K 2O, Cu, Ni and Ba, compared to ferricrete with similar Fe content. This example provides a model of element dispersion during the evolution of a lateritic landscape, which can be used as a basis for interpreting geochemical exploration data in tropical terrains.