(June 10, 2025 at 4:09 pm)SubtleVirtue Wrote:(June 10, 2025 at 1:03 am)Paleophyte Wrote: Yes, the minerals form from the cooling of lava. That's what lava is, liquid mineral.
No, atoms don't stop decaying just because you heat them. The minerals stop recording the decay product above a certain temperature. So the decay product still happens but all trace of it is lost. Above the closure temperature all record of the decay is erased.
closure temperature has nothing to do with decay...
That's correct. Closure temperature is the temperature at which the mineral begins to preserve the record of the decay. Without closure, the daughter product just wanders off into the rest of the rock and your radiometric clock doesn't record a time. Your mineral might as well have been formed yesterday.
