Read More Understanding rates and variability of Earth-surface processes is vital to assessing natural hazards, landscape response to climate change and addressing concerns related to food security and water supply.
Luminescence dating provides an age estimate for sediment deposition and can provide dates to calculate rates and recurrence intervals of natural hazards and Earth-surface processes.
This method has produced robust age estimates from a wide range of terrestrial, marine, tectonic, and archaeological settings.
Importantly, luminescence dating covers an age range that spans the last several decades to the last several hundred thousand years, providing critical rates and dates for evaluating processes that are important to society.
Read More Luminescence dating relies on the fact that mineral grains (crystals) are exposed to sources of natural radiation, which causes charge to be stored in electron traps within the crystal lattice.
The radiation dose rate from the grain’s local environment, which ideally should be homogeneous, is what is routinely measured for luminescence dating.
However, there are often local, sub-millimetre, sources of radiation heterogeneity that adversely affect a desired luminescence age.
[ Datation par luminescence stimulée optiquement : quelle signification en cas de blanchiment incomplet des sédiments fluviatiles ? In: Quaternaire, 15, (1-2), 2004, p 143-157 OPTICALLY STIMULATED LUMINESCENCE DATING: HOW SIGNIFICANT IS INCOMPLETE LIGHT EXPOSURE IN FLUVIAL ENVIRONMENTS?
Optically stimulated luminescence dating: how significant is incomplete light exposure in fluvial environments?
Read More Luminescence dating has been instrumental in constraining the age of archaeological and human skeletal remains.
Thermoluminescence dating was applied originally to heated pottery and burnt flint, and optical dating was developed subsequently to estimate the depositional age of sun-bleached sediments associated with artefacts and fossils.
Luminescence dating methods are specifically used in geology and archaeology.