Strength and Deformation Behavior of Sediment from the Lesser Antilles Forearc Accretionary Prism

The shape and morphology of the northern Barbados Ridge complex is largely controlled by the sediment yield and failure behavior in response to high lateral loads imposed by convergence.Loads in excess of sediment yield strength result in nonrecoverable deformations within the wedge, and failure strength acts as an upper limit beyond which stresses are released through thrust faults.Relatively high loading rates lead to delayed consolidation and in-situ pore pressures greater than hydrostatic.The sediment yield and failure behavior is described for any stress path by a generalized constitutive model.A yield locus delineates the onset of plastic (non-recoverable) deformation, as defined from the isotropic and anisotropic consolidation responses of high-quality 38-mm triaxial specimens; a failure envelope was obtained by shearing the same specimens in both triaxial compression and extension.The yield locus is shown to be rotated into extension space and is centered about a ^T-line greater than unity, suggesting that the in-situ major principal stress has rotated into the horizontal plane, and that the sediment wedge is being subjected to extensional effective stress paths.