CONSOLIDATION AND PERMEABILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH-POROSITY SURFICIAL SEDIMENTS IN ECKERNFORDE BAY

Back-pressured, constant-rate-of-deformation consolidation, and permea bility tests were conducted on 21 ''undisturbed'' samples from Eckernf orde Bay in the Baltic Sea. The soft fine-grained sediments have very high in-situ void ratios and are highly compressible. The compression index decreases slightly in the upper 40 cm but remains essentially un changed below 40 cm at an average value of 3.5 to a depth of 260 cm. R ecompression indices range from 5 to 19% of the virgin indices. The pr econsolidation stress is consistently higher than the overburden stres s, particularly near the surface. Permeabilities at in situ void ratio s vary between 3 x 10(-4) and 10(-6) cm s(-1), with the relationship b etween void ratio and the logarithm of permeability being linear.