Luminescence tools – delivering support for pinning down sediment deposition ages

Since 2012 I am part of the R-Luminescence Team, a group of six scientists that developed and maintain a comprehensive suite of numeric tools to investigate the luminescence of minerals as a tool for dating the depositional history of sediments. The group has been quite a bit active, developing the R-package Luminescence, writing diverse manuals or documentations, holding tutorial seminars for international groups, publishing a series of research articles, sharing our ideas at international conferences, and developing innovative analysis and visualisation techniques.

From the close collaboration another overlapping network disembarked, the RLum.Network, a DFG-funded research network, acting for more than four years. This allows us to meet regularly for small conferences/workshops to push the limits of the R-package 'Luminescence' but also to link further packages with this base. During the years, it became possible to process other than standard OSL data formats and analyis protocols, to include analysis of luminescenc espectra, model the entire luminescence process, and to develop a framework to simulate a complete section of sediment and all its grains in a probabilistic way to have full (virtual) control of the entire working chain of luminescence dating.

Most of the material is hosted on the R-Luminescence website. Reproducing its content here appears cumbersome. Hence, please visit the website for the full spectrum of our achievements.