U–Pb dating of cave sediments has provided important new time constraints on the evolution of cave-dwelling organisms (including early humans) and of Earth's climate during the past 5 Myr. This paper shows that the most common type of U–Pb dating, which uses ²³⁸U and ²⁰⁶Pb, can be inaccurate beyond ca. 2 Myr ago. It proposes an alternative type of U–Pb dating, using ²³⁵U and ²⁰⁷Pb, as a more accurate alternative.

We evaluate different methods for the potassium (K) concentration determination in feldspars and the impact of the K concentrations on dose rate calculations for feldspar luminescence dating. Our results show discrepancies between published K concentrations and our measured K concentrations. Therefore, we emphasize measuring K concentrations via bulk measurements and single-grain techniques to obtain more accurate results.

Helium gas accumulates over time in minerals, but loss can occur depending on temperature. If partially retained, its loss can potentially be used for determining past surface temperatures. This study uses a model that accounts for complex gas loss to analyze helium retention in two minerals commonly found on the surface of Antarctica. We find one of the minerals retains helium, while the other loses nearly all of the gas within 100 years, making it unsuitable as a climate reconstruction.

Paired moderate- and high-precision U–Pb geochronology is used to explore sources of young bias in laser-ablation-based detrital zircon maximum depositional ages (MDAs). We redefine the reference value for MDA accuracy as the age of the youngest analyzed population and reframe MDA algorithm assessments around validity. This study highlights opportunities to refine MDA research and anticipates continued community efforts to further improve accuracy of laser ablation zircon geochronology.

StratoBayes is a novel Bayesian method for aligning stratigraphic data from multiple sites. It integrates diverse information, such as geochemical signals and radiometric dates, and provides robust age estimates with quantified uncertainty for all sites. We use StratoBayes to correlate lower Cambrian δ¹³C records from Morocco with an undated record from Siberia, and estimate the age of the world’s oldest trilobites.