Geologist Erik Jonsson hunting for gadolinite, the mineral in which at least seven elements were originally discovered Joshua Howgego
If I were a biologist celebrating the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, I might be in the Galapagos islands right now, with its exotic animals and balmy weather. But no, I am New Scientist’s resident chemist, 2019 is the 150th anniversary of the periodic table, and I am standing in a puddle of slush and ice with a man from the Geological Survey of Sweden.
Ytterby, a village on the island of Resarö not far from Stockholm, is one of chemistry’s most important sites. It was here, in 1787, that a Swedish army officer named Carl Axel Arrhenius found a scrap of black mineral and sent it to a friend for analysis. It proved to be of singular importance: almost a tenth of the naturally occurring elements in the periodic table would eventually be discovered from rocks identified in that one village.
Today Ytterby is cold, with icy winds sweeping in off the Baltic Sea. But my guide, Erik Jonsson, does his best to keep my spirits up. In the car park outside my hotel this morning, I decline his offer of snus, a moist Scandinavian tobacco that you roll into balls and stuff under your upper lip. “It’s better for you than smoking,” he says, when I politely decline, rolling himself a piece half the size of his thumb.
He still has it in place 30 minutes later, when we pull up in snowy Ytterby. Now an …
