Much of the chronology of northern Eurasia during the last glacial cycle is based on luminescence dating using quartz. This is known to be accurate over the C-14 age range, but there is evidence of an underestimation of ~10% in sediments of associated with MIS 5e from both Denmark and northern Russia (the Sula River sections). The doses in these sediments are all ~200 Gy; this is close to the limit of the quartz dose range. On the other hand, feldspar can record much higher doses (and so older ages), but it suffers from anomalous (athermal) fading; this leads to significant age underestimations if not corrected for. This study uses feldspar grains extracted from the Sula sediments. The problems of correcting for fading are discussed, and the accuracy of the resulting ages is compared with the quartz results, and with the independent dating evidence. Finally, the likely useful age range of feldspar is discussed.

Reference:

Buylaert J.-P., Huot S. and Murray A. Revisiting Sula: Using Feldspar to Date the Eemian. Correlation of Pleistocene Events in the Russian North. International Workshop Abstracts. 4-6 December 2006. Saint-Petersburg, 2006, p. 22.