ABSTRACT

The geotechnical conditions offshore Angola in freefield areas (i.e. those outside the influence of geohazards) are typical of deepwater hemipelagic environments. With the exception of a slightly stronger “crust” within 1m of the seabed, the clays are generally lightly over consolidated to normally consolidated with a shear strength gradient of 1-1.5 kPa/m.The submerged unit weights of the clays are very low (typically only 2-3 kN/m3 in the upper 20 m).