The Birth of Mineral Physics at the ANU in the 1970s

Abstract

In 1970, I established the first mineral physics laboratory in Australia at the Australian National University (ANU) under the auspices of A.E. (Ted) Ringwood. Over the next six years, we published 25 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, many of them in collaboration with graduate students, Ian Jackson and Leonie Jones. This research was focused on measurements of sound velocities in minerals (and their structural analogues) at high pressures and temperatures, as well as studies of melting and elastic shear instabilities in materials and applications of these experimental data to interpreting seismic models of the Earth’s interior.