Soil mechanics not moving, the water pressure obeys the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium, formula_89, but note that formula_93, is negative above the water table. Hence, hydrostatic water pressures are negative above the water table. The thickness of the zone of capillary saturation depends on the pore size, but typically, the heights vary between a centimeter or so for coarse sand to tens of meters for a silt or clay. In fact the pore space of soil is a uniform fractal e.g. a set of uniformly distributed D-dimensional fractals of average linear size L. For the clay soil it has been found that
Soil morphology Typical bulk density of clay soil is between 1.1 and 1.3 g/cm. This calculates to a porosity between 0.58 and 0.51. This seems counterintuitive because clay soils are termed "heavy", implying "lower" porosity. Heavy apparently refers to a gravitational moisture content effect in combination with terminology that harkens back to the relative force required to pull a tillage implement through the clayey soil at field moisture content as compared to sand. Porosity of subsurface soil is lower than in surface soil due to compaction by gravity. Porosity of 0.20 is considered normal for unsorted gravel size material at depths below