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The unique behaviour of carbonate materials under shear loading has stimulated in investigating of their geological and engineering properties.Carbonate soils composed of calcium or other carbonates and most abundant in tropical marine environments are of interest from geotechnical view, especially for offshore engineers engaged with Fossil-based fuel exploitation. This was initiated in the early 1960's, when the first offshore borings in the Persian Gulf identified layers of calcarenite and thick layers of sand containing visible shell fragments.For the purpose of exploiting gas and oil resources in hot and temperate climates (e.g. Persian Gulf) off-shore structures have been placed on carbonate soils. The carbonate sediments are high crushable compared with low crushable sediments such as quartzic soils.To examine the crushability of these problematic sediments a series of monotonic compression, extension and post-cyclic triaxial tests under different densities and confining pressures was carried out to study the crushing behaviour of "Rock" carbonate sand obtained from Cornwall, England.It was shown that crushing coefficient decreases with increasing in maximum principal effective stress ratio for both loose and dense states. It seems that for skeletal carbonate sand maximum and minimum dry densities will be changed during shearing loading. In other words, even though the sample has experienced an increase in density, it may also have experienced a reduction in relative density.

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Carbonate materials are mostly found in tropical areas, where exploiting gas and oil resources are of high concern. Their unique behavior under shear loading first was recognised during oil resources investigations in the Persian Gulf. Off-shore structures have been placed on carbonate soils which are highly crushable.During storms cyclic loading imposes on the bases of structures lied down on seabed. Cyclic loading, therefore, may trigger liquefaction phenomenon which leads to soil collapse and a catostrophic event. Therefore, stability of these expensive structures need to be investigated. To this aim carbonate sand in medium dense to medium dense state was considered and its response under varied cyclic shear stress ratio was studied.

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The unique behaviour of carbonate sediments under shear loading has stimulated in investigating of their geological and engineering properties. Their shapes are very different varying from needle shaped to platy shaped. Hence, it is important to examine their fabric effect on soil response under shearing condition. To this aim a series of small scale laboratory element testing were carried out on North Cornwall Rock" beach sand. Non-cemented and cemented Carbonate sand response under compression and extension loading and different initial density and confining pressure with samples allowed to be drained were investigated and compared. The results show that the sand shear strength under Extension loading is lower than compression regarding to anisotropic fabric due to platy and needle shape of grains. The anisotropy is reduced with increasing the confining pressure and initial relative density with non-cemented sand. Furthermore, present of cement bounds reduces the anisotropy especially in low confining pressures.