Section 3 investigates geochronologic research tasks using luminescence dating methods (IRSL, OSL, TL, single grain), the radiocarbon (carbon-14)-method, Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (Thorium-230/Uranium) as well as the lead-210 method. This scope of methods is unique in Germany and allows for a determination of reliable time frames and/or time series for cold and warm stage sedimentary deposits ranging from the last 500,000 years up to very recent deposits (few decades).

Water samples can be analyzed using tools from isotope hydrology, which are used for research tasks in the topical research field ‚Groundwater Systems’ of our institute. Environmental and climatic changes determine our daily lives. The capability to reliably predict climatic developments requires a deep unterstanding of climatic changes during the geologic past. Especially the knowledge of a reliably dated age is of crucial importance. Peat and lake deposits, loess and paleosoils as well as river terraces with intercalated peat horizons host important informations. Using those archives the development and variability of the (paleo)climate can be reconstructed in a high resolution.