Closure temperature
Imagine you have a toy that you want to keep safe from someone else taking it away. You put the toy in a safe to keep it secure. The safe has a lock that only you can open with a special key.
Closure temperature is like the safe lock for atoms. Atoms are like the building blocks of rocks and minerals. When these rocks or minerals form, some of the atoms inside them can be unstable and can change over time. Scientists use closure temperature to understand when these changes stop happening. Just like when you close the safe and no one can get the toy anymore, closure temperature is the temperature at which the atoms inside a rock or mineral “lock in” their current state, and no more changes can happen.
For example, if you took a rock and heated it up, the atoms inside could start to move around and change. But if you then cool the rock down to a certain temperature that is specific to each type of mineral, the atoms will stop moving around and the rock will be “locked in” to its current state. This temperature is called the closure temperature. By understanding closure temperature, scientists can learn more about the history of rocks and minerals, how long ago they formed, and what conditions they formed under.
Closure temperature is like the safe lock for atoms. Atoms are like the building blocks of rocks and minerals. When these rocks or minerals form, some of the atoms inside them can be unstable and can change over time. Scientists use closure temperature to understand when these changes stop happening. Just like when you close the safe and no one can get the toy anymore, closure temperature is the temperature at which the atoms inside a rock or mineral “lock in” their current state, and no more changes can happen.
For example, if you took a rock and heated it up, the atoms inside could start to move around and change. But if you then cool the rock down to a certain temperature that is specific to each type of mineral, the atoms will stop moving around and the rock will be “locked in” to its current state. This temperature is called the closure temperature. By understanding closure temperature, scientists can learn more about the history of rocks and minerals, how long ago they formed, and what conditions they formed under.