<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>This study focusses on dose rate determination in complex settings in two drill cores from the site of Niederweningen, northern Switzerland. A crosscheck with a certified standard material and neutron activation analyses (NAA) reveals an overall good performance of high-resolution gamma spectrometry (HR-GS) when determining dose rate-relevant elements. A second focus is on average water content during burial, by comparing measured sediment moisture with water uptake capability. Furthermore, layer models are used to investigate the impact of inhomogeneous stratification on dose rate. Finally, different scenarios to correct for radioactive disequilibrium in the uranium decay chain are investigated. While most of the applied corrections appear to have only a minor to moderate effect on age calculation, the results for one core are contradictory. Possibly, some of the applied correction scenarios are not reflecting the complex natural setting sufficiently, in particular average sediment moisture during burial and the timing of radioactive disequilibrium might be incorrectly estimated. While deposition in one core can be quite securely attributed to the period 100–70 ka, assigning the sediment sequence in the other core to the time between ca. 130 ka and 90 ka remains to some extent insecure.</p>
</abstract>

This study focusses on dose rate determination in complex settings in two drill cores from the site of Niederweningen, northern Switzerland. A crosscheck with a certified standard material and neutron activation analyses (NAA) reveals an overall good performance of high-resolution gamma spectrometry (HR-GS) when determining dose rate-relevant elements. A second focus is on average water content during burial, by comparing measured sediment moisture with water uptake capability. Furthermore, layer models are used to investigate the impact of inhomogeneous stratification on dose rate. Finally, different scenarios to correct for radioactive disequilibrium in the uranium decay chain are investigated. While most of the applied corrections appear to have only a minor to moderate effect on age calculation, the results for one core are contradictory. Possibly, some of the applied correction scenarios are not reflecting the complex natural setting sufficiently, in particular average sediment moisture during burial and the timing of radioactive disequilibrium might be incorrectly estimated. While deposition in one core can be quite securely attributed to the period 100–70 ka, assigning the sediment sequence in the other core to the time between ca. 130 ka and 90 ka remains to some extent insecure.

Complex Dose Rate Calculations in Luminescence Dating of Lacustrine and Palustrine Sediments from Niederweningen, Northern Switzerland

Institute of Earth and Environmental Science

Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen

Geochronometria

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

This study focusses on dose rate determination in complex settings in two drill cores from the site of Niederweningen, northern Switzerland. A crosscheck with...

Complex Dose Rate Calculations in Luminescence Dating of Lacustrine and Palustrine Sediments from Niederweningen, Northern Switzerland

Published Online: Nov 16, 2023

Page range: 28 - 49

Received: Mar 27, 2023

Accepted: Aug 23, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/geochr-2023-0003

Keywords
luminescence dating, dosimetry, gamma spectrometry, water content, sediment inhomogeneity, radioactive disequilibrium

© 2023 Frank Preusser et al., published by Sciendo

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

Complex Dose Rate Calculations in Luminescence Dating of Lacustrine and Palustrine Sediments from Niederweningen, Northern Switzerland

Published Online: Nov 16, 2023

Page range: 28 - 49

Received: Mar 27, 2023

Accepted: Aug 23, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/geochr-2023-0003

Keywordsluminescence dating, dosimetry, gamma spectrometry, water content, sediment inhomogeneity, radioactive disequilibrium

© 2023 Frank Preusser et al., published by Sciendo

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

Keywords
luminescence dating, dosimetry, gamma spectrometry, water content, sediment inhomogeneity, radioactive disequilibrium