Optical dating of Holocene tidal deposits from the southwestern coast of the South Yellow Sea using different grain-size quartz fractions

Abstract The tidal flat deposit provides ideal sedimentary records for paleoenvironmental studies. Reliable chronology is crucial to utilize this archive for deciphering the history of environmental changes. In this study, we applied optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating method to a Holocene tidal flat sequence using both coarse-grained (CG, 90–200 μm) and fine-grained (FG, 4–11 μm) quartz extracts from a sedimentary core (YZ07) in western coast of the South Yellow Sea. The luminescence characteristics of the two grain-size fractions were investigated and then their resulting OSL ages were systematically compared. The results suggested that most tidal flat deposits are well bleached and their FG quartz ages are generally consistent with CG quartz ages, while some samples have CG ages underestimated compared with FG, likely resulted from the K-feldspar contamination for CG quartz. Hence, we applied post-IR OSL dating and pulsed OSL dating techniques; they could overcome the problems caused by feldspar contamination, and yielded identical dates as FG OSL ages. All OSL ages are generally in stratigraphic order; in contrast, the 14 C ages are much more disorder and characterized with severe inversions. Finally, the age framework of the tidal flat sequence under this study was constructed based on the 30 OSL ages and one acceptable radiocarbon age. According to the age-depth model, three main periods of sedimentation-rate (SR) variation were identified. These SR changes are probably associated with sea-level rise/fall history, and the depocenter landward/seaward movement as well as the transition of depositional process within the Holocene delta initiation. The depositional environment changes were also reflected in sedimentological features of the tidal flat deposits in our study area.