In the 70s, Scientists Discovered a 2BN-Year-Old Nuclear Reactor in West Africa

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/in-the-1970s-scientists-discovered-a-2-billion-year-old-nuclear-reactor-in-west-africa-4472460b82c2

by lelf • 12 years ago

37 4 12 years ago

medium.com

CapitalistCartr• 12 years ago

As discussed on HN before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731753

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2349182

matthewmcg• 12 years ago

The neat detail (for me, anyway) is that a natural uranium reactor of this sort was possible in the distant past when U-235 was relatively more abundant:

"When the ore in Gabon was laid down some 2 billion years ago, the concentration of uranium-235 would have been about 4 per cent, more than enough for a self-sustaining nuclear reaction."

iwwr• 12 years ago

There was a relatively short window for that to happen since uranium is soluble in water only in the presence of oxygen, and significant uranium deposits develop through hydrothermal processes.

anon1110• 12 years ago

It is some kind of failure that no part of this was preserved for scientific study, given the unique and non-reproducible nature of the ancient reactor. Such a loss!

In the 70s, Scientists Discovered a 2BN-Year-Old Nuclear Reactor in West Africa

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