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h i g h l i g h t sDiscrepancy between quartz SAR-OSL ages obtained on fine and coarse grains. Dose response curve adequately fitted by a sum of two saturating exponentials. Isothermal decay fitted by a single exponential. Clear dependency between the saturation characteristics (D 0 s) and the quartz grain size. No correlation between the 2 D 0 value and the maximum attainable accurate equivalent dose. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c tThere are two major problems commonly encountered when applying Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating in the high dose range: (i) age discrepancy between different grain sizes, and (ii) age underestimation. A marked and systematic discrepancy between fine-grain (4e11 mm) and coarse-grain (63e90 mm) quartz single aliquot regeneration protocol (SAR) ages has been reported previously for Romanian and Serbian loess >40 ka (D e of~100 Gy), generally with fine-grain ages underestimating the depositional age. In this paper, we show a similar age pattern for two grain size fractions from Chinese loess, thus pointing to a potential worldwide phenomenon. While age underestimation is often attributed to signal saturation problems, this is not the case for fine grain material, which saturates at higher doses than coarse grains, yet begins to underestimate true ages earlier. Here we examine the dose response curves of quartz from different sedimentary contexts around the world, using a range of grain sizes (diameters of 4e11 mm, 11e30 mm, 35e50 mm, 63e90 mm, 90e125 mm, 125e180 mm, and 180 e250 mm). All dose response curves can be adequately described by a sum of two saturating exponential functions, whose saturation characteristics (D 0 values) are clearly anticorrelated with grain diameter (4) through an inverse square root relationship, D 0 ¼ A/√4, where A is a scaling factor. While the mechanism behind this grain-size dependency of saturation characteristics still needs to be understood, our results show that the observation of an extended SAR laboratory dose response curve does not necessarily enable high doses to be recorded accurately, or provide a corresponding extended age range.

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. (2015). Fundamental investigations of natural and laboratory generated SAR dose response curves for quartz OSL in the high dose range. Radiation Measurements, 81, 150-156. DOI: 10.1016/j.radmeas.2015 .013 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 Fundamental investigations of natural and laboratory generated SAR dose response

The loess–palaeosol sequence of Batajnica (Vojvodina region, Serbia) is considered as one of the most complete and thickest terrestrial palaeoclimate archives for the Middle and Late Pleistocene. In order to achieve a numerical chronology for this profile, four sets of ages were obtained on 18 individual samples. Equivalent doses were determined using the SAR protocol on fine (4–11 μm) and coarse (63–90 μm) quartz fractions, as well as on polymineral fine grains by using two elevated temperature infrared stimulation methods, pIRIR290 and pIRIR225. We show that the upper age limit of coarse quartz OSL and polymineral pIRIR290 and pIRIR225 techniques is restricted to the Last Glacial/Interglacial cycle due to the field saturation of the natural signals. Luminescence ages on coarse quartz, pIRIR225 and pIRIR290 polymineral fine grains are in general agreement. Fine quartz ages are systematically lower than the coarse quartz and pIRIR ages, the degree of underestimation increasing with age. Comparison between natural and laboratory dose response curves indicate the age range over which each protocol provides reliable ages. For fine and coarse quartz, the natural and laboratory dose response curves overlap up to ~150 and ~250 Gy, respectively, suggesting that the SAR protocol provides reliable ages up to c. 50 ka on fine quartz and c. 100 ka on coarse quartz. Using the pIRIR225 and pIRIR290 protocols, equivalent doses up to ~400 Gy can be determined, beyond which in the case of the former the natural dose response curve slightly overestimates the laboratory dose response curve. Our results suggest that the choice of the mineral and luminescence technique to be used for dating loess sediments should take into consideration the reported limited reliability.

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14Despite the general satisfactory performance of quartz in the single aliquot regeneration protocol

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