ABSTRACT
The Portuguese deposit of Baixo Mondego presents some quite unusual properties, which are mainly a result of the presence of organic matter. This paper presents and discusses the most significant compressibility properties of the soft soils that form the deposit, which are highly compressible, as a result of both primary consolidation and creep phenomena, and are also characterized by the important variability of their compressibility parameters. The effects of organic matter over the soils′ compressibility parameters are detailed and their values are compared with those of other significant properties, being the most expressive results, the quite good correlation observed between the soils′ compression index, Cc, and its natural water content, and the confirmation of the constancy of the Mesri’s ratio, Cα/Ci, in compression and recompression.
