All minerals in natural rocks are irradiated by the background radiation. The irradiation leads to the formation of different structural defects such as vacancies, interstitial ions, and radiation centers. Accumulation of radiation defects is used for the determination of the age of rocks by such methods as fission track, thermoluminescence dating and dating with electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Parallel to the formation these defects should recombine because they are thermodynamically non-equilibrium. So the concentration of centers which is an index of the age of rocks depends on the balance between formation and recombination rates at given temperature. Beside this thermal stability of radiation centers is an important parameter of the solids. In this work recombination process of paramagnetic [AlO4 -/h+]-centers in quartz from the Elbrus volcanic rocks is studied with laboratory annealing experiments. The experiments have shown that simple first or second order kinetics does not describe recombination process correctly. Hence it was assumed that the recombination processes in quartz is polychromatic and it was simulated with a sum of two exponential and one hyperbolic functions: exp( ( ) ) exp( ( ) ) /(1 ( ) ) 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 y y k T t y k T t y y k T t i i i = − + − + + , where y1, y2, y3 are the relative initial concentration of different centers, k1, k2 are the recombination rates of centers with first order kinetics, k3 is the recombination constant for the centers with second order kinetics. Decomposition of annealing curve into three components (sample P-47-7, 185 oC) by this function is illustrated in fig. 1. Such decomposition means that in studied samples there are three different recombination processes of Al-centers (short-, medium- and long-living) with different recombination parameters. Measured values of the recombination parameters of Al-centers in quartz from the Elbrus volcano rocks are summarized in Table 1. In general recombination of electron-hole Al-centers in quartz should be proportional to the concentration of Al-centers itself and to the concentration of electron traps, i.e. should correspond to second order kinetics while most published results and results of this work correspond to first order kinetics. It was supposed that irradiation of quartz leads to the formation of new complex center consisting of correlated state of [AlO4 -/h+]-center and electron trap with charge compensating ion both located close to Al-center. In this case the recombination rate should be proportional to the concentration of these complex centers and may correspond to first order kinetics. Table 1. Recombination parameters of Al-centers in quartz from the Elbrus volcano rocks.tabel* - recombination rate was calculated for naturally accumulated concentration of Al-centers which varied for studied samples from 1,67 to 10,22 at. ppm. The origin of different thermal stability of complex paramagnetic Al-centers in quartz is discussed on the basis of known models of radiation centers in quartz. It is shown that known electron paramagnetic centers in quartz can not be used to explain recombination processes of Al-centers in quartz. Therefore there should be one or more unknown electron traps, probably non-paramagnetic, which are a source of electrons for the recombination with electron holes. These complex centers may include or not charge compensating ions released by [AlO4 -/M+]-precursors after irradiation. Mean lifetime of Al-centers is very important for EPR dating method and should exceed measured geological age (up to 800 ka for the Elbrus volcano). The values of mean lifetime (Table 1) at natural storage temperature of samples unambiguously show that short-living Al-centers can not be used for EPR dating of the Elbrus rocks. Correct dating should be based on the accumulation of middle- and long-living Al-centers. For that purpose special EPR dating technique with preheating was applied.