OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence)
Definition
A dating method that measures the accumulated radiation dose stored in mineral grains (usually quartz or feldspar) since they were last exposed to sunlight. Gives the date of sediment burial or the last disturbance by light, not the burial of an organic body.
Related terms
- AMS radiocarbon dating
- Accelerator Mass Spectrometry measurement of the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in a sample. It requires milligram-scale samples and produces a raw...
- Bomb-pulse dating
- Use of the post-1952 atmospheric 14C spike, produced by nuclear weapons testing, to date biological tissues formed since 1950. Because the spike...
- Calibration curve
- A plot of instrument response (peak area, absorbance, intensity) against analyte concentration, built from five to seven standards spanning the expected case...
- Dendrochronology
- The science of dating by tree-ring sequences. Each annual ring encodes the growing conditions of that year; matching ring patterns to a...
- Terminus post quem (TPQ)
- Latin for 'limit after which.' The date of the youngest datable item in a context sets the earliest possible date for the...
Explained in
- Radiocarbon and Other Dating MethodsA dating method that measures the accumulated radiation dose stored in mineral grains (usually quartz or feldspar) since they were last exposed to sunlight. Gi...