Alfred Edward "Ted" Ringwood FRS FAA (19 April 1930 – 12 November 1993) was an Australian experimental geophysicist and geochemist, and the 1988 recipient of the Wollaston Medal.
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, synthesised the spinel form of (Mg,Fe)2SiO4, Also in 1966, the transformation of pure forsterite (Mg2SiO4) to spinel-like phase was achieved.
In 1969 a new mineral was discovered in fragments of the Tenham meteorite which had the same crystal structure as the high pressure spinel polymorph of olivine.
[4] A team from the University of Alberta have isolated terrestrial ringwoodite in a brown diamond specimen found in Brazil in 2008.