Abstract
At five sites in western Victoria a total of five Quaternary dating techniques have been applied to shell beds varying in age from Holocene to beyond the last interglacial. To examine the age concordancy of the methods, 89 analyses were conducted—16 by radiocarbon, 26 by uranium series disequilibrium, 26 by amino acid racemisation, 5 by thermoluminescence and 16 by electron spin resonance, the latter previously reported by Goede (1989). Uncertainties associated with diagenetic environments of samples precluded reliable numerical age assignments for beds older than Holocene. Instead, relative dating of shell beds was based on a reference site (Goose Lagoon) which was assigned to the last interglacial based on its morphostratigraphic setting and concordant results of three of the dating methods (amino acid racemisation, uranium series disequilibrium and electron spin resonance).Overall there was considerable agreement between methods although not all were applied to each site. Uranium series dating proved most problematical. Migration of radionuclides between groundwater and shells introduced large errors at one site and led to appreciable uncertainties at others.
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