Optical Dating of Marine Sediment From ODP Core 658B - An Intercomparison With an Independent AMS 14C Chronology

We demonstrate the potential of optical dating of detrital quartz silt from marine sediments via a chronological intercomparison for samples from ODP Site 658, which range in age from 0 to 140ka. ODP Site 658 is located off Cap Blanc, Mauritania. It has a high sedimentation rate (18 cm/ka), due to high regional surface productivity and large inputs of windblown Africa dust. This windblown dust provides both the substrate for optical dating and a proxy for North African aridity. The AMS 14C chronology is based on monospecific foraminiferal (Globigerinoides bulloides) samples. This is the first large-scale, systematic application of optical dating to marine sediment, and demonstrates that the technique has considerable potential for the age estimation of otherwise undateable deep-sea material. Optical dating techniques measure the total ionising radiation dose that a mineral grain has received since its last exposure to sunlight (i.e. during burial). The resulting optical age is essentially calibrated via a knowledge of the environmental dose rate, yielding the burial period. The environmental dose rate is derived from the decay of radioisotopes in the sediment (K, U and Th). In terrestrial sediments, the uranium and thorium decay chains can be assumed to be in equilibrium. In the marine realm this assumption is not valid, and unsupported uranium decay series exist on deposition. Consequently, the environmental dose rate changes with sample age. This problem was circumvented by quantifying U and Th decay series disequilibrium, using an MC-ICP-MS. The evolution of the environmental dose rate during burial was modelled, and ages for each sample calculated. The 14C and optical ages are generally in good agreement, indicating that the latter technique can provide equally robust chronologies for marine sediments. Although the maximum age attainable using optical dating is sample specific, the dose rate and luminescence characteristics of the samples analysed in this study indicate that marine sediments ranging from 0-200ka should be dateable. Very precise (1-3%) burial doses and radioisotope concentrations were obtained, although ultimately precision is limited to about 10% due to uncertainties in the moisture content, source calibrations and dose rate conversion factors. However, over the timescales that optical dating is applicable, these overall errors are not inconsistent with the rarely quoted precision accorded to orbitally tuned records. Optical dating should provide a valuable geochronological tool for marine sediments extending well beyond the time range of 14C dating, and for dating marine sediments that contain no dateable carbon.