Radiofluorescence comes to Oxford

A novel method of dating K-feldspars using a technique called infra-red radiofluorescence (IR-RF) is about to be applied in the PalaeoChron project at Oxford. The method has been worked on for several years, and our own Dr Marine Frouin is one of the leaders in the field. It opens the possibility of extending the range of luminescence methods back to 1 million years, and therefore makes possible a new application of the technique to deeper time questions in human evolution.

Marine has produced several publications over the last few years which describe the IR-RF approach, and now, with funding from the Fell Fund, she and Jean-Luc Schwenninger have succeeded in raising the money to purchase the equipment needed to enable us to apply RF in our Lexsyg instrument.

Reference:

Frouin, M., Huot, S., Kreutzer, S., Lahaye, C., Lamothe, M., Philippe, A., Mercier, N., (2017)

An improved radiofluorescence single-aliquot regenerative dose protocol for K-feldspars.

Quaternary Geochronology, 38: 13-24.