Testing the applicability of a standardized growth curve (SGC) for quartz OSL dating: Kalahari dunes, South African coastal dunes and Florida dune cordons

Abstract

Standardized growth curves (SGCs) have recently been developed as a means to reduce measurement times when determining palaeodoses in the standardized luminescence (OSL) dating of quartz, but this approach is not without its critics. We test the performance of SGCs derived from samples from a range of environments in southern Africa and Florida (United States of America). Data presented here suggest that the method performed well when determining low (<50Gy) equivalent dose (De) values from samples with different geological provenances within South Africa. However, the application of an SGC built from South African data performed poorly when used to estimate the palaeodoses of samples from Florida, with seven out of ten samples failing to replicate the single aliquot regenerative (SAR)-derived De value to within ±10%. We thus advocate the use only of regionally based SGCs for full De determination, although SGCs can also be utilized as a way of quickly generating SAR ‘range finders’ irrespective of sample origin. Furthermore, one sample from the Florida site did not show regenerative growth in accordance with any samples from either the South Africa or Florida data, resulting in significant De underestimation when using the SGC. Although the reasons for such behaviour are not yet understood, this re-iterates the recommendation of Burbidge et al. [2006. De determination for young samples using the standardised OSL response of coarse-grain quartz. Radiation Measurements 41(3), 278], to incorporate a single regenerative step in SGC protocols in order to check consistency.