Osl dating oxford

TL dating is a matter of comparing the energy stored in a crystal to what "ought" to be there, thereby coming up with a date-of-last-heated.

In the same way, more or less, OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) dating measures the last time an object was exposed to sunlight.

the emission of a characteristic colour of light) when stimulated.

Stimulation can be achieved by heating (thermoluminescence or TL) or exposure to light (optically-stimulated luminescence or OSL).

The exposure to radioactive elements continues, and the minerals begin again storing free electrons in their structures.

With this bleaching effect removed, the influence, albeit often weak, of naturally-occurring radioactive elements (primarily potassium-40, uranium and thorium) within the sediment together with incoming cosmic rays results in the accumulation of a signal within individual mineral grains (most commonly quartz and feldspars).

During the 1960s and 70s, the Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art led in the development of TL as a method of dating archaeological materials.

Luminescence dating is an absolute radiometric method of determining the age of a material since a key event in its history - typically burial (in the case of sediments) or firing (in the case of ceramics or burnt stone).

Electrons from these substances get trapped in the mineral's crystalline structure, and continuing exposure of the rocks to these elements over time leads to predictable increases in the number of electrons caught in the matrices.

But when the rock is exposed to high enough levels of heat or light, that exposure causes vibrations in the mineral lattices and the trapped electrons are freed.