Reply to: “Discussion: Determination of Atterberg Limits Using the Vane Shear Test Method [Bull. Min. Res. Exp. (2024) 174: 1–10]”

The main focus of the criticisms raised by O'Kelly and Soltani (2025) (hereafter referred to as discussers) to the authors' article in Bulletin of Mineral Research and Exploration (174, 1-10) is to examine the veracity of the strength-based equations presented by Kayabalı et al. (2024). The discussers applied the predictive equations proposed by the authors to dissimilar soils in the two articles (Kayabalı et al., 2015a; Kayabalı et al., 2015b) published earlier by the lead author with his research group. The discussers showed that the predictive equations 6 and 7 given by Kayabalı et al. (2024) yield extremely high values of liquid limit (LL) and plastic limit (PL) when applied to dissimilar soils. Further, discussers argued that the approach proposed by Kayabalı et al. (2024) led to erroneous results in determining soil classes.