An attempt has been made to use falling cone technique for measuring the shear strength of lime treated marine clays. The amount of lime seeped into different lime treated marine clays with duration was estimated, and laboratory vane shear tests were carried out to compare with falling cone strength data. X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique was used to examine the nature of compounds formed in different lime treated soil systems. Test results revealed that strength of different lime treated systems increased by 8 to 10 times of untreated soil. Further the obtained results indicated a linear relationship between the falling cone and laboratory vane shear tests. © 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd.