Quaternary Geochronology 4 (2009) 231232

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Quaternary Geochronology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quageo

Short Communication

The DATA program for the calculation of ESR age estimates on tooth enamel
Rainer Grun
Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 7 October 2008
Received in revised form
17 December 2008
Accepted 17 December 2008
Available online 8 January 2009

The supplementary ZIP le of this paper contains the DATA program, which can be used for ESR age
calculations of tooth enamel. This paper outlines the use and limitations of this program.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
ESR Dating
U-series dating
tooth enamel

1. Program description
The supplementary ZIP le of this paper contains the DATA
program, which can be used for ESR age calculations of tooth
enamel, including calculations for early U-uptake, linear U-uptake
as well as combined ESR/U-series models. The program is written in
Quick Basic, a DOS based program. Note that some DOS commands
are not supported by Windows XP and Vista. Particularly, there are
problems to print the results. DATA uses the lprint command,
which is not supported by USB printers. The program is mainly
driven by function keys.
The program is based on dose rates by Adamiec and Aitken
(1998), beta attenuations by Marsh (1999), EU and LU calculations
by Ikeya (1982), U-series half lives by Cheng et al. (2000) and
calculations of p-values by Grun et al. (1988). The only standard
value is the alpha efciency value of Grun and Katzenberger-Apel
(1994). For the correct use of the water content see Grun (1994).
There are certain limitations on the program: DATA does not
allow the calculation of U-series age estimates for 230Th/234U
activity ratios of >1 (such analytical values may occur if the
234 238
U/ U ratios are >1) as well as 234U/238U of <1. These limits
include the errors, i.e. a 230Th/234U ratio of 0.980  0.022 incurs
a calculation with 230Th/234U > 1. If an input is attempted that may
lead to a potential crash in the program (e.g. zero dose, thickness or
density), the program requests a re-entry. DATA does not allow for
negative values (i.e. the error must be smaller than the mean value).
The sample symmetry is: dentine 1/enamel/dentine 2. If the Uconcentration of dentine 1 is zero, DATA automatically assumes
E-mail address: rainer.grun@anu.edu.au
1871-1014/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.quageo.2008.12.005

that a single enamel layer was embedded in sediment with no

adhering dentine or cement. If the U-concentration of dentine 2 is
zero, it is automatically assumed that this side was exposed to
sediment. If layers of different thickness are removed, side 1 faces
the internal dentine, side 2 the cement or sediment. Note that for all
symmetries an innite matrix dose rate is assumed for the adhering
layers.
For the dental tissues, U-disequilibrium is assumed, for the
sediment values U-equilibrium. All dose rate results (in mGy a 1) are
averages over time (for formulae see Grun, 1989).
The input For b-irradiation only: if Y is selected, DATA uses
the sediment values for the calculation of the external beta dose
rate, whereas N uses these values to calculate both external beta
and gamma dose rates. This gamma dose rate is added to any other
gamma or cosmic dose rates.
The cosmic dose rate attenuation is calculated for average
sediment densities of 2 g cm 3 (the hard and soft components are
combined, dose rates and attenuations are based on Prescott and
Hutton, 1988, 1994, see also discussion in Grun, 1994). A zero input
leads to a zero cosmic dose rate. A surface dose rate is calculated by
a non-zero value, e.g. 0.001. Other densities can be calculated by
scaling the depth (i.e. multiply the depth by the ratio of the actual
density over the average density [2 g cm 3]). Latitude and altitude
corrections (Prescott and Hutton, 1994) are not carried out, if these
are required, they have to be manually adjusted in the external
gamma dose rate eld. The cosmic dose rate is added to the
external gamma dose rate.
Error calculation: the mean dose rates are calculated from all
mean values. The effect of each error input is calculated for the total
dose rates as well as all given dose rate components. It is explicitly

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n / Quaternary Geochronology 4 (2009) 231232

R. Gru

assumed that the errors are linear within the error range. While
this may not necessarily be the case, for U-series results this
simplistic assumption leads to error assessments in close agreement with the more complex model of Ludwig and Titterington
(1994). Note that the errors of the alpha, beta and gamma dose rates
do not necessarily add up in quadrature to the error in the total
dose rate, because some of the errors in the partial dose rates are
highly correlated. For combined U-series/ESR dating, the negative
age error is calculated separately from the positive.
If there are any model violations during the calculation of the
combined U-series/ESR age estimates (i.e. during the error estimation, a U-series age may be older than the mean ESR age), no
result is given (error message: U-series too high: no result). However,
closed system U-series age and dose values (Grun, 2000) are
calculated (in the CS-US output). The comparison of the US/ESR and
CS-US/ESR age estimates gives a critical insight to the model
sensitivity of combined ESR/U-series age estimates, see for example
Grun and Schwarcz (2000).
The program can be adapted for the calculation of age estimates
on mollusk shells (note the decisively different alpha efciency
values for mollusks: Grun and Katzenberger-Apel, 1994).
Text les (with an .EPR extension) with the data are saved in the
specied directories. Because this is a DOS le, any le name cannot
be longer than 8 characters.
When reading existing data les, or using the F2 function key
after the calculation of the results, data entries can be revised using
arrow keys and Enter. A straight second Enter restores the
previous value, any other input leads to a revision of the previous
value. During these revisions, data can be entered that violate the
outlined limits of DATA. This may lead to completely nonsensical
results.

Appendix. Supplementary data

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.quageo.2008.12.005.
Editorial handling by: R. Roberts

References
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rate in the AGE and DATA programs. Ancient TL 12, 5051.
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