ringwoodite

The physical properties of ringwoodite are affected by the pressure and temperature.

Honoring the importance of Ringwood's work the mineral was named Ringwoodite.

Olivine, wadsleyite, and ringwoodite are polymorphs found in the upper mantle of the earth.

It is polymorphous with ringwoodite and is found to be stable in the transition zone of the Earth's upper mantle.

The pressure range for stability of ringwoodite lies in the approximate range from 18 to 23 GPa.

The solubility of hydroxide in ringwoodite is important because of the effect of hydrogen upon rheology.

Wadsleyite II is a separate spinelloid phase that might occur between the fields of wadsleyite and ringwoodite.

A closer look at coloured aggregates shows that the colour is not homogeneous, but seems to originate from something with a size similar to the ringwoodite crystallites.

The colour of ringwoodite varies between the meteorites, between different ringwoodite bearing aggregates, and even in one single aggregate.

It is a hydrous magnesium-iron silicate with variable composition that occurs between the stability regions of wadsleyite and ringwoodite γ-MgSiO.

In meteorites, ringwoodite occurs in the veinlets of quenched shock-melt cutting the matrix and replacing olivine probably produced during shock metamorphism.

Impacts on the parent body are recorded by impact-breccias and high-pressure mineral phases (e.g. coesite, akimotoite, majorite, ringwoodite, stishovite, wadsleyite).

In synthetic samples, pure Mg ringwoodite is colourless, whereas samples containing more that one mole percent FeSiO are deep blue in colour.

Apart from the mantle, natural ringwoodite has been found in many shocked chondritic meteorites, in which the ringwoodite occurs as fine-grained polycrystalline aggregates.

At a depth of 660 km, ringwoodite (gamma-(Mg,Fe)SiO) decomposes into Mg-Si perovskite and magnesiowustite.

(Horiuchi and Sawamoto, 1981) The phase was originally known as β-MgSiO or "beta-phase " and is a polymorph of olivine, along with minerals ringwoodite.

Huang XG, Xu YS, Karato SH (2005) Water content in the transition zone from electrical conductivity of wadsleyite and ringwoodite.

In Earth's interior, olivine occurs in the upper mantle at depths less than about 410 km, and ringwoodite is inferred to be present within the transition zone from about 520 to 660 km depth.

Olivine is most abundant in the upper mantle, above about 410 km; the olivine polymorphs, wadsleyite and ringwoodite, are thought to dominate the transition zone of the mantle, a zone present from about 410 to 660 km depth.

Between about 400 km and 650 km depth, olivine is not stable and is replaced by high pressure polymorphs with approximately the same composition: one polymorph is wadsleyite (also called beta-spinel type), and the other is ringwoodite (a mineral with the gamma-spinel structure).

Ringwoodite in the lower half of the transition zone is inferred to play a pivotal role in mantle dynamics, and the plastic properties of ringwoodite are thought to be critical in determining flow of material in this part of the mantle.