Optically stimulated luminescence and isothermal thermoluminescence dating of high sensitivity and well bleached quartz from Brazilian sediments: from Late Holocene to beyond the Quaternary?

ABSTRACT: The development of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of sediments has led to considerable advance in the geochronology of the Quaternary. OSL dating is a well established technique to determine sediment burial ages from tens of years to few hundred thousand years. Recent studies have shown that Quaternary sediments of Brazil are dominated by quartz grains with high luminescence sensitivity, allowing the determination of precise and reliable OSL burial ages. In this paper, we show examples of OSL dating of quartz aliquots and single grains from different regions in Brazil, including young coastal-eolian Late Holocene ( 2 Ma) in the low dose rate (0.5 - 1.0 Gy/ka) environments typical for Brazilian sediments.