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Since the early 1980s, amino acid racemisation reactions have been applied to the dating of Quaternary coastal deposits in Australia. Sequences of Middle Pleistocene age or younger have received the greatest attention. Amino acid racemisation has been applied as a relative and numeric dating method, as well as for identifying remanie fossils and in delineating the spatial distribution of some fossil mollusc species. The method has also been used to verify the radiocarbon ages of fossil molluscs from interstadial sediments. It has also been used in studies of coastal neotectonics and in comparisons with other dating methods (e.g. electron spin resonance and thermoluminescence). The most reliable results are from replicate analyses of the hinge region of well-preserved and diagenetically unmodified fossil bivalve molluscs from deeply buried situations (i.e. > 1 m). Molluscs have been dated from a range of sites …