In Hungary, many loess/palaeosol sequences have been found to be discontinuous. In order to allow for correlations with other Quaternary records, reliable chronologies are needed. We therefore apply post-IR infrared (IR) stimulated luminescence (post-IR IRSL; pIRIR 290 ) dating to the uppermost 20 m of the loess sequence at Paks. The pIRIR 290 ages are compared with blue quartz OSL ages to test for potential age overestimation due to poor signal re-setting, and the observed good agreement is taken to imply that the more difficult to bleach pIRIR 290 signal was reset prior to deposition. Our pIRIR 290 based chronology reveals that most of the Late Pleistocene loess was deposited during marine isotope stage (MIS) 3 and during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This is in disagreement with formerly published ages. The discrepancy can most likely be explained by anomalous fading (resulting in an age underestimate); this conclusion is supported by our uncorrected 'standard' IRSL ages. We further confirm that the Basaharc Double soil complex can be correlated with MIS 7; the underlying loess and soils cannot be dated accurately because the pIRIR 290 signal approaches saturation.
Keywords: Late Pleistocene; Middle Pleistocene; loess; OSL; post-IR IRSL; Hungary
M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E DACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2
IntroductionThe importance of loess/palaeosol sequences to the reconstruction of the landscape evolution and the palaeoenviroment in the Carpathian Basin has been pointed out by several studies (e.g. Bronger, 1975Bronger, , 2003 Pécsi and Richter, 1996). In regions thought to be dominated by continuous loess deposits such as the Chinese loess plateau (e.g. Kukla, 1987) and the southeast Carpathian Basin (Vojvodina region; e.g. Marković et al., 2008Marković et al., , 2011 Fitzsimmons et al., 2012) to marine isotope stage (MIS) 13, the BA soil to MIS 11, and the BD soil complex to MIS 9 and 7. The first 'absolute' ages of the MB soil were presented by Borsy et al. (1979). At Mende ( Fig. 1), they dated the loess above the MB soil to 105 ± 17 ka using thermoluminescence (TL). In Paks (Fig. 1), the loess underlying this soil was dated to 125 ± 20 ka; they concluded that the MB soil represents the last interglacial. In contrast, Wintle and Packman (1988) argued, based on their TL data for the loess underlying the Mende Upper soil (Mende felsı; MF, also subdivided into MF 1 and MF 2 ), that the MB cannot be correlated with the last interglacial, but has to be much older. Singhvi et al. (1989) claimed that the BD 2 soil (therein called F 3 after Bronger (1975)) corresponds to the last interglacial. Several studies (Zöller et al., 1994; Oches and McCoy, 1995;Frechen et al., 1997; Novothny et al., 2002) have now identified the MF 2 as the last interglacial palaeosol, thus placing the BD 1 -BD 2 soil complex, the BA and the MB soil all in the Middle Pleistocene. Zöller et al. (1994) presented TL ages of 133 ± 15 ka (between BD 1 and BD 2 ) and 135 ± 12 ka (below BD 2 ) for the sequence in Basaharc (Fig. 1...