THE KINETICS OF TL PEAKS AND ITS EFFECT ON THE DOSE VERSUS TEMPERATURE PLOT

The central procedure in thermoluminescence (TL) dating is the determination of the radiation dose, D-E, that a sample has received in its geological past. Any random or systematic errors in the assessment of D-E are directly reflected in the corresponding TL age estimate. In many TL dating studies, the D-E value is derived from plateaux in the dose vs temperature plot. This study presents simulations of TL glow curves containing ideal first- and second-order kinetics TL peaks. The TL intensities and corresponding doses were selected to lie exactly on a single saturating exponential function. The results imply that there is a wide range of possibilities to estimate incorrect D-E values from plateaux in the dose vs temperature plot, even when only first-order kinetics TL peaks are involved. However, it can also be shown that the regeneration method or its refinement, the slide method, can in principle produce correct D-E estimates for first- and second-order kinetics TL peaks.