We report granular temperature and solid fraction fields for a thin rectangular bed (20x200 mm cross-section and 500 mm high) of glass particles (mean diameter of 165 mu m and density of 2500kg/m(3)) fluidized by water for superficial velocities ranging from 0.05U(t), which is approximately double the minimum fluidization velocity, to 0.49U(t), where U-t is the particle terminal velocity estimated by fitting the Richardson-Zaki correlation to the bed expansion data. At superficial velocities below 0.336U(t), the solid fraction and granular temperature are uniform throughout the bed. At higher superficial velocities, the solid fraction tends to decrease with height above the distributor, whilst the granular temperature first increases to a maximum before decaying towards the top of the bed. Correlation of the mean granular temperature with the mean solid fraction and the local granular temperature with the local solid fraction both suggest that the granular temperature in the liquid fluidized bed can be described solely in terms of the solid fraction. The granular temperature increases monotonically with solid fraction to a maximum at phi approximate to 0.18 where it then decreases monotonically as phi approaches the close-packed limit. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.