Project Details
Projekt
Luminescence- and Alpha-Recoil-Track-Dating of Lake Malawi Sediments
Applicant
Dr. Annette Kadereit
Subject Area
Palaeontology
Term
from 2002 to 2004
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5363043
Lake Malawi is supposed to hold a tropical sedimentary archive of outstanding quality and duration (größer als 2 Ma) storing unique information on the climatic and landscape history of the East-African rift area. However, a necessary requirement for the intended analysis of the paleo-environmental archive within ICDP/KTB-activities will be the establishment of a wellresolved chronology. Therefore the availability of reliable dating techniques, which each produce accurate data and which together cover the total time period in question, will be essential. This is why a pilot study is launched in order to test the applicability of two independent physical dating methods for Lake Malawi sediments. (1) Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) techniques aim to determine the time, when a mineral grain was last exposed to daylight during its last sedimentary cycle of erosion, transport and deposition. (2) The alpha-recoil-track (ART) technique determines the time when a mineral grain was formed and thus possesses a high potential as a tephra-chronological dating tool. The expected mineralogical and sedimentological properties, the small amount of material available and a complicated dose rate situation of the limnic sediments will require the adaptation and further development of the already available dating technologies.
DFG Programme
Infrastructure Priority Programmes
Participating Persons
Professor Dr. Ulrich A. Glasmacher; Professor Dr. Günther A. Wagner
