Normally, people take a leave of absence from touring for bad reasons like to have surgery, head to rehab or deal with a family tragedy. But thanks to Chelsea Grin guitarist Dan Jones, we get to report about his leave of absence from touring with the group for a cool reason; scientific research.

In a series of Twitter posts, which you can check out below, Jones shares his excitement at being able to spend his summer researching microbial mercury methylation in Salt Lake City, Utah’s Westminster College. The musician even posted a link to a research paper he wrote and submitted this past December. Check it out here. To give you a preview of what you are in for, here is the first sentence of the paper: “Halophiles are microorganisms that exist exclusively in hypersaline environments where the NaCl concentration is greater than 3.5%, which is the salt concentration of seawater (Allred and Baxter 2013).”

As of May 9, Jones stated that he will not be touring with the band for the remainder of 2015 so he can spend the summer in a lab researching. Chelsea Grin and The Word Alive are currently on a co-headlining tour. The trek kicked off on April 28, with both bands playing together through May 23. Chelsea Grin then take a short break, before heading back out on the road June 17 on a tour that sees them playing in the U.K., Europe and Australia through Aug. 23.

While Jones will not be with the band on the road for the rest of the year, he did say that staying in Salt Lake City will give him more time to think about Chelsea Grin's next record.

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