Luminescence characteristics of quartz from the Southern Kenyan Rift Valley: Dose estimation using LM-OSL SAR

J. H. Choi, G. A. T. Duller, A. G. Wintle, C.-S. Cheong

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Linearly modulated (LM) optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) measurements have revealed that some sedimentary quartz samples from the Kenyan Rift Valley do not have a fast OSL component, but contain a medium component and several slow components. It was impossible to recover a known dose for these samples using the conventional single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) procedure. The dose-response curves and continuous wave (CW) OSL decay curves for these samples showed several undesirable properties for dating. We have compared various luminescence characteristics of these samples with other quartz samples from elsewhere in the world for which the SAR procedure has been shown to be appropriate; the latter were dominated by a fast OSL component. The characteristics include photoionisation cross-sections for each component and the relative proportions of the different components in the initial and total OSL signals. It was found that those samples that had greater than 90% of the initial 0.8 s of their OSL signal from the fast component were suitable for dating using the conventional SAR protocol. A novel method of displaying the relative contributions of the different OSL components in a ternary diagram is proposed. The thermal stability of each component was investigated using pulse-annealing experiments. We then examined the possibility of applying an LM-OSL SAR protocol to samples that have a substantial medium component.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)847-854
Number of pages8
JournalRadiation Measurements
Volume41
Issue number7-8
Early online date20 Jul 2006
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01 Aug 2006

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