The closure temperature of a mineral for a decay system is the temperature below which the parent and daughter atoms no longer diffuse in or out of its lattice fast enough to matter, so that the mineral behaves as a closed system. A cooling age is an age measured in a mineral that formed above its closure temperature: it dates the moment the mineral cooled through that temperature, not the moment it formed.
Earth and Space Sciences · Glossary
What is Closure temperature, cooling age?
Also known as: closure temperature · cooling age