Developing luminescence dating for extraterrestrial applications: Characterization of martian simulants and minerals

Surface exposure dating of non-terrestrial bodies using optically stimulated luminescence: A new method

“…The basic parameters used in the model are ru 0 ; l; _ DðxÞ and D 0 which can either be obtained by data fitting and appropriate calibration, or derived from first principles as discussed below: ru 0 : We follow a similar approach to that of Sohbati et al (2011) to quantify the value of ru 0 , and we further assume that the dependence of photoionisation cross-section on wavelength r(k) for the mineral mixtures in non-terrestrial sediments is similar to that of feldspar (Jain et al, 2006;Kalchgruber et al, 2006;Blair et al, 2007). Then r(k) can be approximated by extrapolating the data of Spooner (1994) for feldspar to the wavelengths up to 10 lm.…”

Extraterrestrial dunes: An introduction to the special issue on planetary dune systems

“…Many of the methods used on Earth (e.g., chronometric methods such as radiocarbon, photoluminescence, short-lived isotopes; or hybrid methods that use calibrated models: e.g., weathering rind thickness, lichen growth or desert varnish geochemistry) cannot be used because of the absence of organic matter, atmospheric composition and history of atmospheric events. Although numerical methods are being tested, refined and instruments developed for sample return and in situ analysis on planetary rovers, most of this work is still in the developmental phase (Lepper and McKeever, 2000;Franklund and Lepper, 2004;Doran et al, 2004;Jain et al, 2006;Kalchgruber et al, 2006;McKeever et al, 2006;Jain et al, 2007;Kalchgruber et al, 2007;Blair et al, 2007;Morthekai et al, 2007;Lepper, 2008;Morthekai et al, 2008;Tsukamoto and Duller, 2008;Detschel and Lepper, 2009).…”

The effects of low ambient temperatures on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) processes: Relevance to OSL dating of martian sediments

“…The latter goal faces many challenges . Among them are included issues related to estimation of the natural dose rate (De Angelis et al, 2006;Dartnell et al, 2007a,b;Banerjee and Dewangan, 2008), the need to work with unseparated polymineralic samples of uncertain mineral content Blair et al, 2007), fading of the luminescence signal from basaltic materials (Banerjee et al, 2002;Tsukamoto and Duller, 2008), a thin atmosphere with a higher ultraviolet content compared to the Earth , an environment of low and variable ambient temperature and, of course, the need to design a robotic instrument to perform the dating procedure in situ, rather than in a laboratory Jain et al, 2006;Kalchgruber et al, 2007). This paper focuses on one of the challenges to developing robotic in situ dating for the martian surface and sub-surface, namely that related to the ambient temperature.…”