Science
Related: About this forumResearchers discover a 2 billion year old Nuclear Reactor in Gabon, Africa
In 1972, a worker at a nuclear fuel processing plant noticed something suspicious in a routine analysis of uranium obtained from a normal mineral source from Africa. As is the case with all natural uranium, the material under study contained three isotopos- ie three forms with different atomic masses: uranium 238, the most abundant variety; uranium 234, the rarest; and uranium 235, the isotope that is coveted because it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. For weeks, specialists at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) remained perplexed. Elsewhere in the earths crust, on the moon and even in meteorites, we can find uranium 235 atoms that makes up only 0.720 percent of the total. But in the samples that were analyzed, which came from the Oklo deposit in Gabon, a former French colony in West Africa, the uranium 235 constituted only 0.717 percent. That small difference was enough to alert French scientists that there was something very strange going on with the minerals. These small details led to further investigations which showed that least a part of the mine was well below the normal amount of uranium 235: some 200 kilograms appeared to have been extracted in the distant past, today, that amount is enough to make half a dozen nuclear bombs. Soon, researchers and scientists from all over the world gathered in Gabon to explore what was going on with the Uranium from Oklo.
What was found in Oklo surprised everyone gathered there, the site where the uranium originated from is actually an advanced subterranean nuclear reactor that goes well beyond the capabilities of our present scientific knowledge. Researchers believe that this ancient nuclear reactor is around 1.8 billion years old and operated for at least 500,000 years in the distant past. Scientists performed several other investigation at the uranium mine and the results were made public at a conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to News agencies from Africa, researchers had found traces of fission products and fuel wastes at various locations within the mine area.
Incredibly, compared with this huge nuclear reactor, our modern-day nuclear reactors are really not comparable both in design and functionality. According to studies, this ancient nuclear reactor was several kilometers long. Interestingly, for a large nuclear reactor like this, thermal impact towards the environment was limited to just 40 meters on all sides. What researchers found even more astonishing, are the radioactive wastes that have still not moved outside the limits of the site as they are still held in place tanks to the geology of the area.
What is surprising is that a nuclear reaction had occurred in a way that the plutonium, the by-product, was created and the nuclear reaction itself had been moderated something considered as a holy grail for atomic science. The ability to moderate the reaction means that once the reaction was initiated, it was possible to leverage the output power in a controlled way, with the ability to prevent catastrophic explosions or the release of the energy at a single time. Researchers have dubbed the Nuclear Reactor at Oklo as a natural Nuclear Reactor, but the truth about it goes far beyond our normal understanding. Some of the researchers that participated in the testing of the Nuclear reactor concluded that the minerals had been enriched in the distant past, around 1.8 billion years ago, to spontaneously produce a chain reaction. They also concluded that water had been used to moderate the reaction in the same way that the modern nuclear reactors cool down using graphite-cadium shafts preventing the reactor from going into critical state and exploding. All of this, in nature.
Read more: http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/2-billion-year-old-nuclear-reactor-in-Gabon-20150605
niyad
(113,207 posts)Igel
(35,293 posts)Hardly a new find. Just not one that's widely known.
Every once in a while a new detail or interpretation of an older detail is worked out.
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)but interested in learning at least a little; a nice YouTube video that explains it all quite clearly.
PoiBoy
(1,542 posts)..for posting this video...
Very informative..!
pumpkin_lifter
(3 posts)First time learning about this. it's fascinating!
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)Simple enough for me to understand, too. Always good!
Welcome to DU - you're just in time for the election season, so I hope you brought your hard hat!
eppur_se_muova
(36,256 posts)Cowan, G. A. 1976. "A Natural Fission Reactor," Scientific American, 235:36
"A Prehistoric Nuclear Reactor," Chemistry, January 1973:24
Romeo.lima333
(1,127 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)undeterred
(34,658 posts)Last edited Sat Jun 6, 2015, 05:09 PM - Edit history (1)
when I read the headline. Aliens were here, built a nuclear reactor, and then left.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,294 posts)An 'advanced' reactor? That implies a measurement by which how far this had 'advanced' can be reckoned. There is no such measurement, of course. "Design and functionality" - the formation had, of course, no 'design' nor 'functionality'. "Thermal impact towards the environment was limited to just 40 meters on all sides" - this sounds highly unlikely, since there's no such thing as a perfect insulator that could stop all heat moving beyond 40 metres for the apparent 500,000 years it was active (or 'operated', as this blog misleadingly puts it).
All in all, this is a badly-written attempt at implying that, indeed, 'aliens did it'. A Wikipedia article on it would be much better:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor