Ted Ringwood

Alfred Edward "Ted" Ringwood FRS (19 April 1930 - 12 November 1993) was an Australian experimental geophysicist and geochemist.

The mineral ringwoodite was named after Ted Ringwood in recognition of his experimental work using the germanate minerals as low pressure analogues for high-pressure silicate polymorphs. These experimental insights allowed him to predict that polymorphic phase transitions in the common mantle minerals, olivine and pyroxene, would occur within the pressure regime of the Earth's Transition Zone. At the Australian National University he began experimental study of silicates at high pressure, and in 1959 demonstrated that the iron end-member of olivine indeed transformed to the denser spinel structure, as did numerous germanate and germanate-silicate solid solutions. In 1966, Ringwood and Alan Major, the technical officer who worked with him from 1964 to 1993, synthesized the spinel form of (Mg,Fe)₂SiO₄, Also in 1966, the transformation of pure forsterite (Mg₂SiO₄) to spinel-like phase was achieved. This is the mineral which was named after him.

In 1978, his ANU team invented synroc, a possible means of safely storing and disposing of radioactive waste.

Ringwood died of lymphoma on 12 November 1993 at the age of 63.

References

[http://www.science.org.au/academy/memoirs/ringwood.htm A.E. Ringwood biography]