They re almost literally our window into the geological past, because they concentrate radionuclides and are incredibly durable, Watson says. Besides the funded work he carries out with colleagues and students, Watson likes to reserve one research project to himself, usually something so idiosyncratic he can t justify it professionally or financially, but so intellectually intriguing he can t leave it alone. It s exploratory, maybe even eccentric stuff no one else thinks of doing. It s important that I work on crazy ideas, he says. His current crazy idea is finding a means of detecting and mapping the minute presence of the lanthanide series elements in synthetic rocks.
Any rock contains the entire periodic table, every element in the universe is in every rock.