A new age diagnostic for globular clusters is described which uses the difference between the turnoff and the base of the giant branch as the age indicator. As a first application, it is shown that there is a difference in age of 3.1 + or - 0.9 Gyr between the classic 'second parameter' pair NGC 288 and NGC 362. The existence of this age difference is independent of metal abundance differences between the two clusters of up to 0.5 dex. This age difference is corrected for various combinations of relative oxygen enhancement, and it is concluded that the difference in age remains significant for all plausible scenarios.
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Sarajedini et al. (1990) studied this question.