A solution to anomalous fading and age shortfalls in optical dating of feldspar minerals

Recent reports of age underestimations for events of interest in both palae oclimatology and archaeology have led to questioning the validity of using luminescence for dating sediments. The commonly designated culprit is anoma lous fading of feldspar luminescence. We investigated the differential fadi ng rates of single feldspar grains in sediment samples from different geolo gical domains of North America and deduced how one could extrapolate to zer o fading. This is shown to resolve an extreme case of optical age underesti mation documented for the Late Pleistocene Norfolk Formation, a key palaeoc limate stratigraphic unit exposed along the North American Atlantic Coast. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.