Interpreting the spread in equivalent-dose estimates is an important aspect of optically
stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating. Ideally, prior to age estimation, an assessment
should be made of the likely spread in equivalent dose due to dose-rate heterogeneity in the
sediment. Such a procedure would greatly increase the validity of OSL ages, particularly for
sediments susceptible to partial bleaching, and for sediments with coarse or poorly sorted
grain-size distributions. In this paper we take a step towards a general model of dose-rate …