standard mercury pot pressure generation system ( Eishop and Henkel, 

 1962) . Triaxial cells were fabricated using the design developed at 

 the University of California at Berkeley (Seed and others, 1964). 

 Fresh water was used as a cell fluid. The samples were strong enough 

 to be trimmed with a standard wire trimmer without introducing any 

 apparent disturbance. Samples were encased in two rubber membranes 

 separated by silicone grease to prevent osmosis between cell and sample 

 water. Pore and cell pressures were measured with the same conventional 

 strain gage transducer. Volume changes during consolidation were meas- 

 ured with an inverted, calibrated U-tube containing a volume of colored 

 silicone oil. One of the triaxial test specimens was consolidated 

 under K Q (no lateral strain) conditions. In this test, the axial load 

 was increased and the confining pressure adjusted in such a way that 

 the volume of fluid flowing out of the sample divided by the change in 

 sample height equaled the initial sample cross sectional area. 



RESULTS 



Index Properties 



Index properties measured included water content, grain density, 

 grain size distribution, and Atterberg limits. The grain densities, 

 sand-silt-clay percentages, and Atterberg limits, are given in Table 

 I. Plots of the grain size distributions are given in Figure 2. Water 

 contents were obtained within one week following the coring and again 

 about one year later from one of the small cores which was taken from 

 a box core and sealed. Since engineering property testing was con- 

 ducted during the intervening period, the water contents measured be- 

 fore and after this testing serve as a check on the quality of sample 

 sealing. The measured water contents are shown as a function of depth 

 within each core in Figure 3. As may be seen there was little change 

 in water content during the storage period. There is also little 

 difference in water content between the two cores and little variation 

 with depth in each core. This consistency is reflected in the other 

 index properties as well. 



Consolidation Characteristics 



Consolidation testing is conducted to obtain two types of infor- 

 mation: (1) parameters which can be used in calculating the settle- 

 ments of structures and (2) the densities and vertical stresses of 

 the soil below the core. The first type of information, if corrected 

 for sample disturbance, is probably valid for engineering analysis 

 since the time frame of laboratory testing is comparable to that of 

 field loading. The second type of information is more doubtful because 

 obtaining density and stress profiles from a relatively short-term test 

 requires an assumption that sediments consolidate under the very long 

 term conditions of sedimentation in the same way as they do in the 



