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Homework Statement
When walking on the wet strip on the beach, you notice the sand around your feet becoming dry for a while. Why is this?
Homework Equations
The Attempt at a Solution
Intuition says that the pressure due to your weight should squeeze the water from under your foot to the surrounding sand, making it more wet, instead, water is pulled away from the sand surrounding your feet.
I found the following in the soil mechanics page on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_mechanics"
"Foot pressing in soil causes soil to dilate, drawing water from the surface into the pores."
As I understand it, this says that by pushing on wet sand, its volume increases, since the pores dilate, How does that work?
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