Estimating rock cooling rates by using multiple luminescence thermochronometers

• Investigation of a Multi-Luminescence-Thermochronometer (MLT) approach.
• Numerical experiments to constrain rock cooling rates and present-day temperatures.
• Resolution and limitation of the MLT approach are discussed.

The potential of luminescence thermochronology is characterized by diverse luminescence signals with different thermal stabilities available for a single rock sample. These signals may be exploited together to constrain rock cooling rates. In this study, we performed numerical synthetic experiments to assess the advantages and limitations of using multiple luminescence thermochronometers (MLT) of a hypothetical single rock sample to constrain its cooling rate. A series of luminescence traps with typical depths of quartz mineral are investigated (i.e. 1.55–1.70 eV). We use synthetic luminescence saturation ratios predicted from imposed cooling scenarios to assess the benefits of MLT-based forward modeling on constraining rock cooling rates. Our results show that the prescribed cooling rates can be constrained by applying the MLT approach to a single sample, without the requirement of a priori knowledge on the present-day temperature, which is mandatory for the approach only using a single luminescence thermochronometer. Due to the saturation effect of luminescence thermochronometers, the minimum cooling rates that can be constrained with given trap depths are also investigated for the MLT approach.