NEW PROGRESS IN QUATERNARY DATING RESEARCH

The Quaternary plays an important role in the geological history because it is closely related to the human beings.Therefore highly reliable and precise Quaternary dating is needed.Now geologists have improved and developed many Quaternary dating methods.This paper discusses some recent advances in the Quaternary dating in respect to rock stratigraphy,biology,magnetic stratigraphy,archaeology and isotope dating.The main progress of these methods is as follows:the dating precision and efficiency have bean raised markedly while the required dosage of a dated sample is reduced significantly because of the development of technologies,such as the Ar-Ar laser microprobe dating;and these dating methods can be used in wider research fields. For example,the ESR method has used in dating of tills and the sequences established according to the dating results may correlate with the deep sea oxygen isotope stages. However,it is necessary to have plenty of geological experience,choose appropriate dating methods according to the features of the samples and use as many appropriate methods as possible for comparative dating to improve the reliability of dating.