Relationship between cooling rate and cooling age of a mineral: Theory and applications to meteorites

Abstract

Abstract— We reviewed here the recent development on the mathematical formulation of closure temperature of a cooling geochronological system, which permits direct retrieval of cooling rate from cooling age when the diffusion parameters, grain size and initial temperature are known. This formulation is used to show how the cooling rate can be retrieved by comparing the core and bulk age of a mineral determined by a single decay system. The cooling rates of seven H chondrites of the metamorphic types H4, H5 and H6 were retrieved from the available data on the Pb‐Pb model ages of the phosphates and the diffusion kinetic data of Pb in apatite. The results are in excellent agreement with the metallographic cooling rates and show an inverse relation with the metamorphic grade of these chondrites. We also addressed the problem of ∼90 Ma younger Sm‐Nd mineral isochron age, defined by orthopyroxene, phosphate and plagioclase, of the Morristown mesosiderite compared to the Pb‐Pb age of the Estherville mesosiderite. It is shown that this younger age could have been a consequence of resetting during cooling instead of an “impulsive heating” event, as suggested earlier.