Precision and Accuracy in the Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dating of Sedimentary Quartz: a Status Review

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of light-exposed sediments is used increasingly as a mean of establishing a sediment deposition chronology in a wide variety of late Quaternary studies. There has been considerable technological development in the last few years – in instrumentation, in the preferred mineral, and in various measurement protocols. New approaches to the latter, especially with the introduction of the single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) protocol, have given rise to an increasing number of ages in the literature based on the OSL signals from quartz. This paper examines the reliability of these results by reviewing both published and unpublished SAR quartz ages for which some independent age control exists. It first discusses studies of modern (zero age) sediments, and the implications of these results for the importance of incomplete bleaching, especially in water-lain sediments, i.e. sediments for which the initial light exposure is expected to have been insufficient to reduce the apparent dose at deposition to a negligible fraction of the final burial dose. It then compares OSL and independent ages derived from various types of sediments, including aeolian, fluvial/lacustrine, marine and glacio-fluvial/lacustrine. It is concluded that, in general, the ages are accurate, in that there is no evidence for systematic errors over an age range from the last century to at least 350 ka. Nevertheless, the published uncertainties of a small fraction of OSL ages are probably underestimated. We conclude that OSL dating of quartz is a reliable chronological tool; this conclusion is reflected in its growing popularity in Quaternary studies.