On the use of Ti centres for estimating burial ages of Pleistocene sedimentary quartz: Multiple-grain data from Australia

Ti-related paramagnetic centres in quartz are promising dosimeters to estimate burial ages of sedimentary deposits with electron spin resonance (ESR). In general, two different subspecies can be found, known as Ti-Li and Ti-H centres. Recent single- and multiple-grain ESR dating experiments have shown that apparent burial doses determined from these two centres seldom converge to a single value. In an attempt to further investigate this problem, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and ESR equivalent doses from Australian aeolian quartz are compared in this study. In general, the results confirm earlier findings that the Ti-H centre systematically yields lower burial doses compared to the Ti-Li centre. For 'younger' samples, the Ti-H-based data are consistent with the OSL data. Nevertheless, both Ti centres seem to bracket the OSL data over the investigated dose range from 0 to ∼350 Gy. At present, it appears that Ti centres can be used to define a general sedimentation age window for Pleistocene aeolian deposits.