DEVELOPMENT OF OPTICALLY STIMULATED LUMINESCENCE DATING TECHNIQUES FOR APPLICATION TO TERRESTRIAL AND MARTIAN STUDIES By MICHAEL WAYNE BLAIR Bachelor of Science Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky 1999 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December, 2005 DEVELOPMENT OF OPTICALLY STIMULATED LUMINESCENCE DATING TECHNIQUES FOR APPLICATION TO TERRESTRIAL AND MARTIAN STUDIES Dissertation Approved: Dr. Stephen W. S. McKeever Dissertation Adviser Dr. Paul A. Westhaus Dr. Robert J. Hauenstein Dr. Elizabeth J. Catlos Dr. A. Gordon Emslie Dean of the Graduate College ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Most importantly, I would like to thank my wife Melissa for supporting me throughout this long process. Without her support and reassurance, I may never have made it through. I would like to thank Dr. Debabrata Banerjee for my initial instruction and training in the field of OSL dating. He gave me a firm foundation in the field and taught me things that would have taken much longer to learn on my own. I appreciate the support of NASA and JPL through the Graduate Student Researcher’s Program. Their fellowship and the support of Dr. Sam Kim have made this dissertation possible. I have to thank all of my “labmates,” including Dr. Von Whitley, Dr. Eduardo Yukihara, David Klein, and Gabriel Sawakuchi, for research-related discussions as well as all the coffee breaks. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Regina Kalchgruber for her numerous discussions about the “Mars dating project” and her help in identifying martian minerals. Finally, I owe many thanks to my advisor, Dr. Stephen W. S. McKeever. Despite his busy schedule as Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, Dr. McKeever will always make time to discuss research issues with his students. Furthermore, his expertise and research philosophy has allowed me to study the OSL dating process from a physics perspective. This was my desire for a graduate education and could not have been fulfilled in any other laboratory. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1 1.1. Introduction to Luminescence Dating..............................................................2 1.1.1. OSL Methods of Absorbed Dose Estimation.........................................11 1.1.2. Anomalous Fading.................................................................................21 1.2. Motivation for Using OSL Dating on Mars...................................................24 1.2.1. Martian Fluvial Landforms....................................................................25 1.2.2. Martian Aeolian Landforms...................................................................31 1.3. Challenges to Developing OSL Dating for Mars...........................................37 1.3.1. Mineral Composition .............................................................................38 1.3.2. Polymineral Samples .............................................................................42 1.3.3. Temperature Regime..............................................................................43 1.3.4. Natural Dose Rates on Mars ..................................................................44 2. DEVELOPMENT OF A SINGLE-ALIQUOT REGENERATIVE-DOSE POLYMINERAL OSL DATING PROCEDURE .................................................48 2.1. Requisite Properties of a Single-Aliquot Regenerative-Dose Procedure ......49 2.2. Experiments with Feldspars...........................................................................51 2.2.1. Materials and Equipment .......................................................................52 2.2.2. General TL/OSL Characterisitcs............................................................54 2.2.3. Sensitivity Changes................................................................................58 2.2.4. Correcting for Sensitivity Change .........................................................64 2.2.5. OSL Dose Response ..............................................................................72 2.2.6. Dose Recovery Experiments..................................................................85 2.3. Experiments with Quartz ...............................................................................91 2.3.1. Materials and Equipment .......................................................................92 2.3.2. Correcting for Sensitivity Change .........................................................92 2.3.3. OSL Dose Response ..............................................................................98 2.3.4. Dose Estimation and Dose Recovery Experiments .............................103 2.4. Experiments with Quartz and Feldpsars Mixtures.......................................106 2.4.1. Materials and Equipment .....................................................................107 2.4.2. Correcting for Sensitivity Change .......................................................107 2.4.3. OSL Dose Response ............................................................................110 2.4.4. Dose Estimation and Dose Recovery Experiments .............................113 2.5. Concluding Remarks for Chapter 2 .............................................................117 iv 3. CHARACTERIZATION OF OSL PROPERTIES OF MARTIAN SIMULANTS AND MINERALS ...............................................................................................122 3.1. Materials ......................................................................................................124 3.2. Identification of Optically Active Traps ......................................................125 3.3. Correcting for Sensitivity Changes..............................................................129 3.4. Dose Response Curves.................................................................................134 3.5. Dose Recovery Experiments........................................................................144 3.6. Concluding Remarks for Chapter 3 .............................................................145 4. PROPERTIES OF MATERIALS IRRADIATED AND STIMULTED AT LOW TEMPERATURES ..............................................................................................149 4.1. Potential Effects of Temperature on the Luminescence Process…. ............149 4.2. A System to Irradiate and Measure OSL at Low Temperatures..................155 4.3. OSL Properties of Materials Irradiated and Stimulated at Low Temperatures .......................................................................................158 4.3.1. Reproducibility ....................................................................................158 4.3.2. Luminescence Efficiency.....................................................................158 4.3.3. Low Temperature TL...........................................................................159 4.3.4. Effect of Measurement and Irradiation Temperature...........................162 4.4. Numerical Simulations.................................................................................168 4.4.1. The Model and Parameters ..................................................................168 4.4.2. Basic Luminescence Characteristics of the Model ..............................176 4.4.3. Dose Recovery and Dose Estimation at Terrestrial Temperatures ......187 4.4.4. Dose Recovery and Dose Estimation at Martian Temperatures ..........188 4.5. Further Numerical Simulations....................................................................196 4.5.1. Basic Luminescence Characteristics....................................................198 4.5.2. Dose Recovery and Dose Estimation at Terrestrial Temperatures ......206 4.5.3. Dose Recovery and Dose Estimation at Martian Temperatures ..........209 4.6. Dose Recovery for Irradiation at Low Temperatures ..................................213 4.7. Concluding Remarks for Chapter 4 .............................................................215 5. FUTURE DIRECTIONS ......................................................................................218 5.1. Martian Simulants and Dose Estimation Procedures...................................218 5.2. Temperature Considerations ........................................................................219 5.3. Anomalous Fading.......................................................................................220 5.4. Bleaching Characterstics..............................................................................222 5.5. Annual Dose Rate ........................................................................................224 5.6. Sample Sorting.............................................................................................225 5.7. Discussion....................................................................................................226 6. SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION........................................................................227 v 6.1. Summary......................................................................................................227 6.2. Discussion....................................................................................................230 REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................233 APPENDICES ...........................................................................................................246