Beta doses in tooth enamel by “one-group” theory and the ROSY ESR dating software

A new method of calculating beta doses for one-dimensional geometries, based on “one-group” theory, is presented. In typical situations it is found that this approach leads to average beta doses which are significantly lower (by up to 50%) than those from Grün's DATA software. For various natural sources, our beta dose rate estimates are slightly greater than expected from calculations based on Monte Carlo data, while the DATA results agree well with the experimental results of Aitken et al. (1985) for the uranium and thorium decay chains. Further experimental evidence is desirable to resolve this issue. We compare age estimates calculated using new ESR dating software called ROSY, which incorporates this approach, with those from DATA. Because of the difference in beta dose estimates, ROSY ages are generally older than the corresponding DATA ages, there being little difference in gamma and alpha dose estimates. We do however observe significant discrepancies in cosmic dose estimates. Examination of results for El Castillo Cave, Spain, by Rink et al. (1996) suggests that the ROSY age estimates are the more accurate.