<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This study describes the luminescence characteristics of quartz of Upper Pleistocene loess of the Middle Rhine area. The loess/palaeosol sequence of the Schwalbenberg near Remagen com-prises a multitude of interstadial soils and soil sediments that have been dedicated to the Marine Iso-tope Stage 3 (MIS 3). These weak calcaric cambisols and their derivates are underlain by loess and soil sediments of MIS 4 to MIS 5 and covered by loess sediments and intercalated gelic gleysols of MIS 2. We applied luminescence dating of quartz and feldspar of drill core samples and observed an age discrepancy within both data sets. The quartz ages were clearly younger than the feldspar ages, because of thermally unstable signal components of the quartz luminescence signal. Therefore, we re-garded the quartz samples of the lower parts of the drill core as unsuitable for luminescence dating. This underestimation did not affect the quartz samples of the upper part of the drill core which was indicated by age control that was provided by the Eltville tephra layer. Geochemical analysis based on X-ray fluorescence showed that the sediments in the upper part and the lower part of the drill core have different geogenic finger prints most likely due to changing source areas of dust and sediment allocation. We assumed that these different facies types were the reason for the luminescence behav-ior of the quartz samples. </p></abstract>

This study describes the luminescence characteristics of quartz of Upper Pleistocene loess of the Middle Rhine area. The loess/palaeosol sequence of the Schwalbenberg near Remagen com-prises a multitude of interstadial soils and soil sediments that have been dedicated to the Marine Iso-tope Stage 3 (MIS 3). These weak calcaric cambisols and their derivates are underlain by loess and soil sediments of MIS 4 to MIS 5 and covered by loess sediments and intercalated gelic gleysols of MIS 2. We applied luminescence dating of quartz and feldspar of drill core samples and observed an age discrepancy within both data sets. The quartz ages were clearly younger than the feldspar ages, because of thermally unstable signal components of the quartz luminescence signal. Therefore, we re-garded the quartz samples of the lower parts of the drill core as unsuitable for luminescence dating. This underestimation did not affect the quartz samples of the upper part of the drill core which was indicated by age control that was provided by the Eltville tephra layer. Geochemical analysis based on X-ray fluorescence showed that the sediments in the upper part and the lower part of the drill core have different geogenic finger prints most likely due to changing source areas of dust and sediment allocation. We assumed that these different facies types were the reason for the luminescence behav-ior of the quartz samples.

Luminescence dating of loess deposits from the Remagen-Schwalbenberg site, Western Germany

Institute of Geography, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923 Cologne, Germany

Institute for Geography, Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität, Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 21, D-55099 Mainz, Germany

Department of Geography, RWTH Aachen University, Templergraben 55, D-52056 Aachen, Germany

Geochronometria

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This study describes the luminescence characteristics of quartz of Upper Pleistocene loess of the Middle Rhine area. The loess/palaeosol sequence of the...

Luminescence dating of loess deposits from the Remagen-Schwalbenberg site, Western Germany

Published Online: Mar 27, 2015

Page range: -

Received: May 23, 2014

Accepted: Jan 08, 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/geochr-2015-0008

© 2015

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.