In 1972, a worker at a reactor fuel processing plant observed something odd during a routine analysis of uranium extracted from a mine in Africa.
The uranium sample from the Oklo mine lost about 0.003% of uranium-235, the most valuable of the three isotopes in natural uranium. The three types of isotopes are uranium-238 (99.2739–99.2752% of the isotopes in nature), uranium-235 (with 0.7198–0.7202%) and uranium-234 (with 0.0050 –0.0059%), uranium-235 is capable of producing a huge amount of energy. The number 0.003% is very small, but based on the size of these uranium deposits, the total loss of uranium-235 is more than 200kg.
Like other natural uranium samples, the specimen under study contains three isotopes – three with different atomic masses: uranium 238, the most abundant; uranium 234, the rarest; and uranium 235, an isotope that can support a nuclear chain reaction.
However, what has puzzled experts at the French Commission on Atomic Energy (CEA) is that we can find uranium 235 atoms in nature, and they make up only 0.720% of the total number of atoms in the shell. Earth, on the moon and even in meteorites.
But in samples taken from the Oklo mine in Gabon, a former French colony in West Africa, uranium 235 accounted for only 0.717%.
The difference in numbers is 0.003%, which seems small, but it was enough to alert the French scientists that something was wrong with the samples of these minerals. That raises the question, what causes these samples to have uranium 235 levels below the normal standard.
To find out, experts and scientists from all over the world have come together to Gabon to find out what is going on with uranium from Oklo and what makes it so different. After investigating, they concluded that the site of uranium’s origin was an underground nuclear reactor, possessing advanced technology beyond our current scientific understanding.
Many believe that this ancient nuclear reactor is about 1.8 billion years old and has been operating for at least 500,000 years in the distant past.
The researchers conducted various investigations at the uranium mine, and the results were announced at a conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The researchers discovered traces of fission products and fuel waste at various locations in the mine. Interestingly, our nuclear reactors today are not comparable to this reactor in terms of design and functionality.
According to reports, this ancient nuclear reactor was several kilometers long, but despite being a very large nuclear reactor, its thermal impact on the environment was limited to about 40 meters on either side.
The nuclear reaction zones (1) are created by laterite lines (2), water flows through these grooves (3) on a solid granite bed (4).
What the researchers found even more surprising was that the radioactive wastes there had not yet moved beyond the site’s boundaries, as they were kept in place by the geology of the area. In addition, the nuclear reaction happened in such a way that plutonium, the byproduct, was formed, and the nuclear reaction itself was perfectly controlled.
Reaction throttling takes place in a fairly orderly process: once a reaction has started, it can make use of the power output in a controlled manner, with the potential to prevent catastrophic explosions or de-escalate. release energy at a time.
However, we cannot explain specifically how this nuclear reactor works, or who created it and for what purpose it was born. Everything seems to have gone beyond our understanding. As a result, the researchers dubbed the Oklo nuclear reactor the “natural nuclear reactor”.
Some researchers involved in nuclear reactor testing have concluded that the minerals were enriched in the distant past, about 1.8 billion years ago, to spontaneously set off a chain reaction.
They also found that water was used to dampen the reaction in the same way that modern nuclear reactors cool down using graphite-cadmium shafts that prevent the reactor from transitioning to a forward state. expire and explode.
Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, former head of the United States Atomic Energy Commission and Nobel laureate for his work on the synthesis of heavy elements, mentioned that the conditions must be right for uranium to burn in a reaction. .
For example, water participating in a nuclear reaction must be 100% pure raw water, but pure water does not exist in nature anywhere in the world.
Several experts have discussed the mysterious Oklo nuclear reactor, saying that at no point in the estimated geological history of the Oklo deposits has been abundant enough Uranium 235 for natural nuclear reactions to occur. out.
When these deposits were formed in the past, if this were a natural reactor, the radioactive decay of U-235 would be slow, but the fissile material only accounts for a very small amount. mathematically low for nuclear reactions to occur.
And accordingly, until now, this nuclear reactor is still a mystery to us, and is considered the “holy grail” of atomic science.
