INNOVATIONS IN FELDSPAR LUMINESCENCE DATING AND APPLICATION TO PALEOCLIMATOLOGICAL STUDIES

我们的地球正面临着其历史的关键部分，现代社会需要实施适应战略，以应对快速变化的地表环境，以应对全球变暖。地质记录包含沉积档案，可用于解释物理环境对气候变化的恢复力或敏感性。本研究项目的主要目的是在长石发光测年领域发展新的方法，以评估气候敏感的地质和考古沉积档案的年代学。科学的方法是关注沉积物中单个长石颗粒的发光特性。由于长石的固态物理性质，其发光定年适用于最近50万年。因此，这种方法可以探测到比放射性碳深10倍的地质时间，是石英光激发光（OSL）当前年龄范围的5倍以上。测量长石发光的常规技术是使用红外光子来激发发光，因此称为IRSL。在这个研究项目中，我们建议继续采用一种新的方法，即只从未褪色的长石中测定沉积物的年代。随着单粒读取器的新仪器的发展，这项新技术现在成为可能，其中大部分现在在montrsamal实验室可用，这是CFI对UQAM地质年代学小组的主要资助的结果。这项研究的新颖性和最重要的意义在于为参与全球变化科学的自然科学界提供了一个新的时间工具。二十年来，我的研究小组和montrsamal实验室一直处于IRSL约会研究领域的前沿。这项新测年技术的发展将确保加拿大保持国际领先地位。

Our planet is facing a critical part of its history as modern societies need to implement adaptation strategies to rapidly changing surface environments in response to global warming. The geological record contains sedimentary archives that can be used to interpret the resilience or sensitivity of physical environments to climate change. The main objective of this research program is therein to develop new methodologies in the field of feldspar luminescence dating for assessing the chronology of climate-sensitive geological and archaeological sedimentary archives. The scientific approach is to focus on the luminescence properties of single feldspar grains in sediments. Due to the nature of its solid-state physics, luminescence dating of feldspar shall be applicable to the last 500 000 years. This method can therefore probe 10 times deeper into geological time than radiocarbon and more than 5 times the current age range of quartz optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL). The routine technology for measuring luminescence in feldspar is to use infrared photons to stimulate luminescence, hence the term IRSL. In this research program, we propose to follow up on a novel approach that consists in dating sediments from only unfading feldspars. This novel technology is now possible following the development of new instrumentation in single grain readers, most of these are now available in the Montréal laboratory as a result of a major CFI funding to the UQAM geochronology group. The novelty of this research and its upmost significance is in providing access to a new chronological tool for the natural sciences community involved in the science of Global Changes. My research group and the Montréal laboratory have been at the forefront of the IRSL dating research field for two decades. The development of this new dating technology shall insure this international leadership remains in Canada.