The Lyoluminescence (LL) project addresses a fundamental challenge in geoscience and luminescence dating: the lack of effective methods for dating evaporite deposits, particularly halite and sylvite.
These salt minerals are key geological archives, widely distributed in sedimentary basins, and essential for understanding paleoenvironments, tectonic activity, and the longer-term tracking of climate change.
The project proposed a novel solution: exploring lyoluminescence—the emission of light upon dissolution of previously irradiated salts—as the basis for a new dating technique. While LL as a physical phenomenon has been known for decades, its potential as a geochronological tool has not been systematically investigated. The project sought to change that by generating new fundamental knowledge on LL in halite and sylvite, prototyping a portable LL reader (LyoScope), and validating the method through laboratory experiments and real-world sample testing.
Through collaboration with the Morsleben repository in Germany, the project successfully demonstrated that LL signals in natural halite and sylvite are measurable, dose-dependent, and reproducible. These results were published in an open-access journal, confirming the feasibility of LL dosimetry. All hardware and software developed were released under open licenses, hosted on Zenodo, ensuring methodological transparency and enabling reproducibility.
The project’s broader objective was to establish the methodological foundation for LL-based dating, with potential applications in palaeoclimatology and geochronology. Its impact spans scientific and technological dimensions: extending the range of datable geological materials and introducing a new class of luminescence-based instrumentation.
The project did not specifically require integration of social sciences and humanities; however, the ethical, environmental, and policy implications of LL-based dating make it highly relevant for future cross-disciplinary research. These perspectives will be essential in shaping responsible, societally informed applications of the LL method as it progresses beyond proof of concept.
