No, but it is a detailed encyclopedia of the mineral allanite and suggests possible ways of extracting information that is relevant to geologists interested in a wide range of topics.

The mineral allanite is a so-called "accessory mineral," and is found in igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Accessory minerals, while common, are of minor to trace abundances in most rocks, and challenging to study. They merit study because, even though they represent less than 2% of a rock by volume, the accessory minerals host most of a rock’s trace elements. Trace elements include the rare earth elements (or lanthanides), niobium, tantalum, zirconium, uranium, and thorium. Several trace elements are naturally radioactive, and can be used to obtain ages of rock crystallization and metamorphism. Trace elements also form the basis of modern process-oriented geochemistry. Because accessory minerals actively participate in many geochemical processes, the contained radioactive elements and decay products can be used to date these processes. In addition, allanite records and preserves the chemical evolution of its environment as it grows. For these reasons the mineral has become one of the most important tools for geochemists who try to understand the geologic history of rocks ranging from marbles in Antarctica to schists in the Swiss Alps and lavas erupting in Indonesia.

Curiosity has driven most of our research, and allanite with its unique properties had caught our attention in our early studies. Our fascination with allanite is as strong as the first time we observed it in rocks under the microscope, and even now we are writing a new allanite paper—about allanite found in granites from Alaska—with a third colleague.