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Dating techniques

Illuminating the past

Nature volume 520, pages 438–439 (2015)Cite this article

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The technique of optical dating was first reported 30 years ago, and has since revolutionized studies of events that occurred during the past 500,000 years. Here, two practitioners of optical dating assess its impact and consider its future.

Thirty-year anniversaries are traditionally associated with pearls, which are renowned for the lustre produced by the reflection, refraction and diffraction of light. It is fitting, then, that in this International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies, we also celebrate the dawn of the optical dating technique, first reported three decades ago by David Huntley and colleagues in Nature1. Optical dating was proposed by the authors as a method for determining the time since wind-blown and water-borne mineral grains were last bleached by the Sun's rays before becoming buried, for example in a sedimentary landform. It has since become an essential arrow in the quiver of scientists worldwide, enabling geological, biological and archaeological events to be placed on a timescale extending from the present to half a million years ago or earlier — well beyond the 50,000-year limit of radiocarbon dating, and without the need for subsequent calibration corrections.

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Figure 1: Electron traps as timekeepers in mineral grains.

Ref. 1/The Globe and Mail/Nature

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Richard G. Roberts is at the Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia.,

    Richard G. Roberts

  2. Olav B. Lian is in the Department of Geography and the Environment, University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, British Columbia V2S 7M8, Canada.,

    Olav B. Lian

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  1. Richard G. Roberts
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Correspondence to Richard G. Roberts or Olav B. Lian.

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Roberts, R., Lian, O. Illuminating the past. Nature 520, 438–439 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/520438a

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