Generalizing Cusick’s theorem on the closedness of the classical Lagrange spectrum for the approximation of real numbers by rational ones, we prove that various approximation spectra are closed, using penetration properties of the geodesic flow in cusp neighbourhoods in negatively curved manifolds and a result of Maucourant [Mau].

For a real number $q>1$ and a positive integer $m$, let $Y_m\left(q\right):=\left\{{\sum }_{i=0}^n{ϵ}_i{q}^i:{ϵ}_i\in \left\{0,\pm 1,...,\pm m\right\},n=0,1,...\right\}$. In this paper, we show that $Y_m\left(q\right)$ is dense in $ℝ$ if and only if $q<m+1$ and $q$ is not a Pisot number. This completes several previous results and answers an open question raised by Erdös, Joó and Komornik [8].