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Bleaching of blue light stimulated luminescence of quartz by moonlight

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Abstract

Moonlight is sunlight reflected from the moon’s surface. It is additionally modulated by the Earth’s atmosphere, dust and pollutants on its way to the surface of the Earth. This contribution reports the bleaching rates of blue light stimulated luminescence (BLSL) signal of Quartz under full moonlight exposure at the Earth’s surface. Quartz BLSL reduced to 70% by an exposure of 5 hrs moonlight, is in contrast to ~90% reduction in < 3 s with daylight. This was anticipated due to (a) reduced moonlight flux by about a factor of half a million (Agrawal in Lat. Am. J. Phys. Educ. 4(2):325–328, 2010; J. Phys. Astron. 5(1):1–15, 2017); (b) inverse power law dependence of bleaching efficiency on wavelength (Spooner in The validity of optical dating based on feldspar, Ph.D. Thesis, Oxford University, Oxford, 1993; Chen and McKeever in Theory of Thermoluminescence and related phenomena, World Scientific Publications, London, 1997, Chen and Pagonis in Thermally and optically stimulated luminescence: A simulation approach, Wiley and Sons, Chichester, 2011); and (c) moonlight and daylight have spectral peaks around 650 and 550 nm, respectively. Deconvolution of OSL components suggests that moonlight affects the fast component of OSL signal the most. This has ramification for the application in polar regions, where the availability of daylight is at a premium during the winter months. Within a given context, it is conjectured that this could be used to infer the seasonality of sediment transport.

Research highlights

  1. 1.

    Up to 40% reduction of quartz luminescence signal observed over long moonlight exposure.

  2. 2.

    Moonlight can bleach up to 70% of the fast component of blue light stimulated luminescence signal.

  3. 3.

    Moonlight bleaching may hamper the accuracy of ages of sediments which are only transported during night.

  4. 4.

    Seasonality of sediment deposition can be studied using the bleaching effect of moonlight on quartz.

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Acknowledgements

AKS thanks the Department of Science and Technology, India for JC Bose National Fellowship and Year of Science Chair Professorship (YOSCP); the Department of Atomic Energy, India for a Raja Ramanna Fellowship. HMR thanks the DST – JC Bose/YOSCP fellowship to AKS for the research fellowship. We thank Prof. R J Wasson and Prof. Stephen Garnett for the sample.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. AMO-PH Division, Physical Research Laboratory, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, 380 009, India

    H M Rajapara, Vinayak Kumar, Naveen Chauhan & A K Singhvi

  2. Department of Physics, Electronics and Space Science, University School of Sciences, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, 380 009, India

    H M Rajapara & P N Gajjar

Authors
  1. H M Rajapara
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  2. Vinayak Kumar
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  3. Naveen Chauhan
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  4. P N Gajjar
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  5. A K Singhvi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to H M Rajapara.

Additional information

Communicated by Arkoprovo Biswas

Appendices

Appendix

Results of IRSL test conducted for feldspar contamination:

We have conducted an IRSL test on three representative quartz aliquots prepared from an extracted bulk quartz sample. The step of measurement protocol involves: Natural dose + preheat + IRSL + OSL + test dose + preheat + IRSL + OSL + test dose + preheat + OSL + test dose + TL.

Referring figures A1–A3, it is concluded that there is no feldspar contamination to the quartz.

Figure A1
figure 3

TL glow curve measured after 5 Gy irradiation dose to the bleached quartz aliquot. This clearly suggests that there is no feldspar contamination in measured quartz.

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Figure A2
figure 4

IRSL shine down curve for IRSL after 5 Gy test dose irradiation and prior preheat of 240°C for 10 sec.

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Figure A3
figure 5

OSL shine down curve for OSL after 5 Gy test dose irradiation and prior preheat of 240°C for 10 sec.

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Author statement

HMR, PNG and AKS developed the hypothesis; HMR and NC designed experiments, selected quartz sediments and analysed the results; HMR and VK performed luminescence measurements and components specific analysis. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

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Rajapara, H.M., Kumar, V., Chauhan, N. et al. Bleaching of blue light stimulated luminescence of quartz by moonlight. J Earth Syst Sci 129, 212 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-020-01474-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-020-01474-1

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