Marine sediments constitute important archives of past oceanic, climate, and sea-level changes. However, it is difficult to derive accurate chronological models due to the absence of long sediment cores and limitations of dating methods. To investigate the feasibility of applying optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages to establish high-resolution chronologies in the East Sea of Korea, we obtained three cores with lengths up to 120 m from the eastern continental shelf of Korea. Most of the core sediments were homogeneous or crudely laminated mud, with some sand and gravel bed. Multiple dating methods, including fine-grained quartz single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) OSL, thermally transferred OSL (TT-OSL) from fine-grained quartz, and single-grain K-feldspar post-infrared (IR) infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) (pIRIR), following the above description, were applied to overcome the age limitation and create an accurate age model through cross-checking among the different dating methods. We also investigated the applicability of the standardised growth curve (SGC) to TT-OSL signals in continental shelf environments. The equivalent dose (D-e) values from the SGC were consistent with those from the SAR TT-OSL procedure, which suggests that the SGC is valid for long core sediments on the continental shelf. A detailed chronology derived from the radiocarbon, U/Th, and multiple OSL age dating methods was compared. Especially, in core 19ESDP-101, a comparison between TT-OSL ages from fine-grained quartz and pIRIR ages from coarse K-feldspar showed agreement to within 10% at most depths for which ages were measured. We demonstrated that OSL dating from long marine core sediments in a continental shelf margin environment can provide an accurate and precise chronology in undatable regions.
