Abstract
Abstract. The success of luminescence dating as a chronological tool in Quaternary science builds upon innovative methodological approaches, providing new insights into past landscapes. Infrared radiofluorescence (IR-RF) on K-feldspar is such an innovative method that was already introduced two decades ago. IR-RF promises considerable extended temporal range and a simple measurement protocol, with more dating applications being published recently. To date, all applications have used multi-grain measurements. Herein, we take the next step by enabling IR-RF measurements on a single grain level. Our contribution introduces spatially resolved infrared radiofluorescence (SR IR-RF) on K-feldspars and intends to make SR IR-RF broadly accessible as a geochronological tool. In the first part of the article, we detail equipment, CCD camera settings and software needed to perform and analyse SR IR-RF measurements. We use a newly developed ImageJ macro to process the image data, identify IR-RF emitting grains and obtain single-grain IR-RF signal curves. For subsequent analysis, we apply the statistical programming environment R and the package Luminescence. In the second part of the article, we test SR IR-RF on two K-feldspar samples. One sample was irradiated artificially; the other sample received a natural dose. The artificially irradiated sample renders results indistinguishable from conventional IR-RF measurements with the photomultiplier tube. The natural sample seems to overestimate the expected dose by ca. 50 % on average. However, it also shows a lower dose component, resulting in ages consistent with the same sample's quartz fraction. Our experiments also revealed an unstable signal background due to our cameras' degenerated cooling system. Besides this technical issue specific to the system we used, SR IR-RF is ready for application. Our contribution provides guidance and software tools for methodological and applied luminescence (dating) studies on single-grain feldspars using radiofluorescence.
Highlights
During the last two decades of advances in luminescencebased chronologies, two promising developments stand out but somehow never took off: (1) spatially resolved (SR) detection of optical and thermoluminescence signals and (2) infrared radiofluorescence (IR-RF) of potassium feldspar (Kfeldspar)
We showed for sample TH0 that obtained source dose-rate results do not differ significantly from conventional Infrared radiofluorescence (IR-RF) results using a photomultiplier tubes (PMTs)
The degraded camera cooling system stopped us from carrying out additional experiments. Does this leave the question open of whether to expect hidden malign effects in the results of samples TH0 and BDX16551? Our observations indicated that cooling system problems were always clearly visible in the IR-RF curves, manifesting in vastly overestimated unrealistic results – an observation we did not make for the presented results
Summary
During the last two decades of advances in luminescencebased chronologies, two promising developments stand out but somehow never took off: (1) spatially resolved (SR) detection of optical and thermoluminescence signals and (2) infrared radiofluorescence (IR-RF) of potassium feldspar (Kfeldspar). Our perception is that the most significant obstacles in both approaches lie in imperfections of the available instrumentation and the complexity of the data analysis. We draw upon both developments, SR and IR-RF, and present a new approach: spatially resolved infrared radiofluorescence (: SR IR-RF) for measuring K-feldspar on a single grain level. After a brief literature review, the first part will outline the technical aspects and the data analysis methods. The second part will test and apply the developed approach
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