My father, Desmond McConnell, who has died aged 95, made a great contribution to mineralogy, inspiring scientists around the world.
At Cambridge University in the 1960s and 70s, with the excellent X-ray diffraction facilities in the Mineralogy Department, he developed work first published by his crystallographer colleagues, Peter Gay and Mike Bown, on the incommensurate behaviour (ie falling outside the usually understood “rules”) of crystal structures. He also made significant advances in understanding a group of minerals known as plagioclase feldspars.
