Fission track dating of obsidian source samples from the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea and eastern Australia
Abstract
Obsidian samples from several outcrops in Papua New Guinea and eastern Australia have been dated by the fission track method for the first time. The Papua New Guinea samples yielded young ages (c. 25 Ka), whereas dates of 85.5 Ma to 92.3 Ma were obtained for the Australian samples after using the plateau age and track size methods to correct for track fading. The archaeological implications of the fission track dates are discussed.