ALAN J. CRIDDLE DSc 1944–2002

Abstract

Self-portrait digital image created December 2001. The death of Alan Criddle on May 2nd 2002, aged just 57, was a tremendous loss both to his friends and family and to the international mineralogical community. At that time Alan was Chairman of the Commission on Ore Mineralogy and UK national representative on the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names of the International Mineralogical Association. His loss will be most keenly felt in the field of reflected light microscopy as he had taken up the challenge of quantifying the reflectance of ore minerals and creating databases such as the Quantitative Data File (QDF) for Ore Minerals (2nd and 3rd editions), that could be used for mineral identification. In addition to planning a 4th edition of the QDF available free over the internet, prior to his death he was also working on the idea of producing internet or CD digital images of ore mineral textures in reflected light. Alan’s first interest in rocks and minerals was probably stimulated as a child by collecting fossils and stones from the coastline of his native South Wales. Attending his local university in Cardiff, he was awarded an honours degree in petrology by the University of Wales in 1966. Subsequently, Alan undertook a masters degree on mineral deposits in part of the South Wales coalfield, successfully completed in 1967. After a period as a research assistant, again at Cardiff, when he started work on a PhD on the Llanharry iron mines that was never completed, in 1969 he was appointed Scientific Officer at the British Museum (Natural History) with the responsibility for initiating research in ore mineralogy and microscope-spectrophotometry. Within a few years he was promoted to Senior Scientific Officer and his laboratory was under development. Working with Peter Embrey, and together …