Alfred Edward "Ted" Ringwood FRS (19 April 1930 – 12 November 1993) was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n experimental geophysicist and geochemist, and the 1988 recipient of the Wollaston Medal

Wollaston Medal

The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...

.

The mineral

Mineral

A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...

 ringwoodite

Ringwoodite

Ringwoodite is a high-pressure polymorph of olivine, and it is stable at high temperatures and pressures like those in the Earth's mantle near 600 km depth. This mineral was first identified in the Tenham Meteorites in 1969, and it is inferred to be present in large quantity in the earth’s...

 was named after Ted Ringwood in recognition of his experimental work using the germanate

Germanium

Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard, grayish-white metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbors tin and silicon. The isolated element is a semiconductor, with an appearance most similar to elemental silicon....

 minerals as low pressure analogues for high-pressure silicate

Silicate minerals

The silicate minerals make up the largest and most important class of rock-forming minerals, constituting approximately 90 percent of the crust of the Earth. They are classified based on the structure of their silicate group...

 polymorph

Polymorphism (materials science)

Polymorphism in materials science is the ability of a solid material to exist in more than one form or crystal structure. Polymorphism can potentially be found in any crystalline material including polymers, minerals, and metals, and is related to allotropy, which refers to chemical elements...

s. These experimental insights allowed him to predict that polymorphic phase transitions in the common mantle

Mantle (geology)

The mantle is a part of a terrestrial planet or other rocky body large enough to have differentiation by density. The interior of the Earth, similar to the other terrestrial planets, is chemically divided into layers. The mantle is a highly viscous layer between the crust and the outer core....

 minerals, olivine

Olivine

The mineral olivine is a magnesium iron silicate with the formula 2SiO4. It is a common mineral in the Earth's subsurface but weathers quickly on the surface....

 and pyroxene

Pyroxene

The pyroxenes are a group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks. They share a common structure consisting of single chains of silica tetrahedra and they crystallize in the monoclinic and orthorhombic systems...

, would occur within the pressure regime of the Earth's Transition Zone. At the Australian National University

Australian National University

The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...

 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

Spinel

Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4. Balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety.-Spinel group:...

 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

Forsterite

Forsterite is the magnesium rich end-member of the olivine solid solution series. Forsterite crystallizes in the orthorhombic system with cell parameters a 4.75 Å , b 10.20 Å and c 5.98 Å .Forsterite is associated with igneous and metamorphic rocks and has also been found in meteorites...

 (Mg₂SiO₄) to spinel-like phase was achieved. This is the mineral which was named after him.

In 1978, his ANU team invented synroc

Synroc

Synroc, a portmanteau of "synthetic rock", is a means of safely storing radioactive waste. It was pioneered in 1978 by a team led by Dr Ted Ringwood at the Australian National University, with further research undertaken in collaboration with ANSTO at research laboratories in Lucas...

, a possible means of safely storing and disposing of radioactive waste.

Ringwood died of lymphoma

Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer in the lymphatic cells of the immune system. Typically, lymphomas present as a solid tumor of lymphoid cells. Treatment might involve chemotherapy and in some cases radiotherapy and/or bone marrow transplantation, and can be curable depending on the histology, type, and stage...

on 12 November 1993 at the age of 63.