Effects of grain size on quartz ESR dating of Ti-Li center in fluvial and lacustrine sediments

The electron spin resonance (ESR) dating method has been introduced into the Quaternary chronology for nearly 40 years and has been successfully used for dating of fluvial and lacustrine sediments. In order to evaluate the possible effect of the sediment grain size on the dating estimate, the parallel ESR dating testing was carried out on quartz grains of five different size fractions ranging from 50 to 450 μm extracted from the same fluvial and lacustrine sediment collected close to the M/B boundary at the Donggutuo section, Nihewan Basin, China. The results show that equivalent doses and associated ages vary significantly. However the beta irradiation dose rate of the grains with different sizes accounts for only about 6% of the total deviation of the dating results. At the same time, the sensitivity of quartz Ti-Li center was calculated based on the additional irradiation. It shows that the larger grains are more sensitive than the smaller ones, which can leads to higher saturate ESR intensity and less equivalent dose. The variations of the sensitivity of quartz Ti-Li center of the grains with different sizes are responsible for the primary deviation of the dating results. The results also suggest that 100-150 μm grain size fraction would be priority size for the ESR dating of quartz Ti-Li center on fluvial and lacustrine sediments.