Abstract
As part of a long-term study of factors contributing to soil sensitivity, investigations have been carried out on some volcanic ash soils from the North Island of New Zealand. We report here that some soils have sensitivities of up to 140 and clay mineral contents of >80%. They apparently owe their high sensitivity to the fact that the clay is halloysite of the spherical variety, and that interparticle interactions with this particular soil mineral are remarkably slight. Although the clay soil has a high liquid limit (∼65–80), it has a low plasticity index (∼15–30) and its behaviour supports the inactive particle theory of soil sensitivity. When plotted on the Casagrande Plasticity Chart all samples plotted well below the ‘A’ line.
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Smalley, I., Ross, C. & Whitton, J. Clays from New Zealand support the inactive particle theory of soil sensitivity. Nature 288, 576–577 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/288576a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/288576a0
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