Quartz and K-feldspar luminescence dating of sedimentation in the North Bohai coastal area (NE China) since the late pleistocene

Abstract In this study, luminescence dating of core sediments from the North Bohai Coast (China) was applied to provide a high-resolution chronological constraint, on a better understanding of the Holocene marine-terrestrial interaction. The studied sedimentary sequence contains a terrigenous deposit, a transgressive deposit and a prograding deltaic succession; all are believed to have formed during the late Pleistocene. To establish a reliable luminescence chronology, the luminescence signals of ten samples were investigated in order to quantify the degree of bleaching. This approach involved the use of quartz OSL, K-feldspar infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) and post-IR IRSL (pIRIR) ages. The resulting data were then compared with radiocarbon ages. The quartz OSL signals were well-bleached for all the samples, and the feldspar pIRIR 150 and pIRIR 225 signals yielded reliable ages for the pre-Holocene deposits but overestimated ages for late Holocene deposits ( 4  m 3  a −1 for the period of ∼6–1 ka, this increased considerably to 9.1 × 10 6  m 3  a −1 during the rapid progradation of the last millennium. The increase appears related to winter monsoon enhancement and human activity during the last 1000 years.