Quartz from southern Africa: sensitivity changes as a result of thermal pretreatment

Sensitivity changes are known to occur in quartz during luminescence measur ement procedures. Accurate single-aliquot equivalent dose (D-e) evaluations can be made only if the experimental procedure applied causes no sensitivi ty change, or can correct for it. The quartz single-aliquot regenerative-do se (SAR) protocol developed by Murray and Wintle (Murray, A.S., Wintle, A.G ., 2000. Luminescence dating of quartz using an improved single-aliquot reg enerative-close protocol. Radiation Measurements 32, 57-73) incorporates a sensitivity correction procedure that was developed using measurements made on a single sample from Australia. This paper presents experimental data d esigned to test the applicability of this correction procedure to quartz ex tracted from two southern African sediments. The results indicate that accu rate corrections are made using this protocol irrespective of the direction and magnitude of the sensitivity change. The implications for routine D-e evaluation are discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserve d.