Gabon: Natural nuclear reactor in Oklo. Gabonese natural nuclear reactor

One of the hypotheses about the alien origin of man says that in ancient times the solar system was visited by an expedition of a race from the central region of the galaxy, where the stars and planets are much older, and therefore life originated there much earlier.

First, space travelers settled on Phaethon, once located between Mars and Jupiter, but unleashed a nuclear war there, and the planet died. The remnants of this civilization settled on Mars, but even there atomic energy killed most of the population. Then the remaining colonists arrived on Earth, becoming our distant ancestors.

This theory may be confirmed by an amazing discovery made 45 years ago in Africa. In 1972, a French corporation was mining uranium ore from the Oklo mine in the Gabonese Republic. Then, during the standard analysis of ore samples, specialists discovered a relatively large shortage of uranium-235 - more than 200 kilograms of this isotope were missing. The French immediately sounded the alarm, because the missing radioactive substance would be enough to make more than one atomic bomb.

However, further investigation showed that the concentration of uranium-235 in the Gabon mine is as low as in the spent fuel from a nuclear power plant reactor. Is this some kind of nuclear reactor? Analysis of ore bodies in an unusual uranium deposit showed that nuclear fission took place in them as early as 1.8 billion years ago. But how is this possible without human intervention?

Natural nuclear reactor?

Three years later, a scientific conference dedicated to the Oklo phenomenon was held in the Gabonese capital of Libreville. The most daring scientists then considered that the mysterious nuclear reactor is the result of the activities of an ancient race, which was subject to nuclear energy. However, most of those present agreed that the mine is the only "natural nuclear reactor" on the planet. Like, it started many millions of years by itself due to natural conditions.

People of official science suggest that a layer of sandstone rich in radioactive ore was deposited on a solid basalt bed in the river delta. Due to tectonic activity in this region, the basalt basement with uranium-bearing sandstone was sunk several kilometers into the ground. The sandstone allegedly cracked, and groundwater penetrated the cracks. Nuclear fuel was located in the mine in compact deposits inside the moderator, which served as water. In clay "lenses" of ore, the concentration of uranium increased from 0.5 percent to 40 percent. The thickness and mass of the layers at a certain moment reached a critical point, a chain reaction took place, and the "natural reactor" started working.

Water, being a natural regulator, entered the core and started a chain reaction of fission of uranium nuclei. Emissions of energy led to the evaporation of water, and the reaction stopped. However, a few hours later, when the core of the reactor created by nature cooled down, the cycle was repeated. Subsequently, presumably, a new natural disaster occurred, which raised this “installation” to its original level, or the uranium-235 simply burned out. And the operation of the reactor stopped.

Scientists have calculated that although energy was generated underground, its power was small - no more than 100 kilowatts, which would be enough to operate several dozen toasters. However, the very fact that the generation of atomic energy spontaneously occurred in nature is impressive.

Or is it a nuclear repository?

However, many experts do not believe in such fantastic coincidences. The discoverers of atomic energy proved long ago that a nuclear reaction can only be obtained artificially. The natural environment is too unstable and chaotic to support such a process for millions and millions of years.

Therefore, many experts are convinced that this is not a nuclear reactor in Oklo, but a nuclear repository. This place really looks more like a spent uranium fuel dump, and the dump is perfectly equipped. Immured in a basalt “sarcophagus”, uranium was stored underground for hundreds of millions of years, and only human intervention caused it to appear on the surface.

But since there is a burial ground, it means that there was also a reactor that produced nuclear energy! That is, someone who inhabited our planet 1.8 billion years ago already had the technology of nuclear energy. Where did all this go?

According to alternative historians, our technocratic civilization is by no means the first on Earth. There is every reason to believe that in the past there were highly developed civilizations that used the nuclear reaction to produce energy. However, like humanity today, our distant ancestors turned this technology into a weapon, and then killed themselves with it. It is possible that our future is also predetermined, and after a couple of billion years, the descendants of the current civilization will come across the nuclear waste dumps left by us and wonder: where did they come from? ..

In 1972, an ancient nuclear reactor was discovered in Africa on the territory of the Republic of Gabon. At first, scientists found rich deposits of uranium ore. When its composition was checked, it turned out that this ore had already been used.

Given the age of the ancient reactor at 2 billion years, who could have created it to generate energy in those distant times? The most reliable answer is that one of the past civilizations of people on Earth did it.

Huge reserves of uranium ore were used

The source of uranium ore discovered in Gabon (Oklo area) is the largest source of uranium ore in the world. Therefore, he aroused the interest of scientists in many countries after the message of French geologists. They began to investigate the composition of uranium ore. It turned out that the rock contains a lot of uranium-238 and very little uranium-235, which is of interest to people.Uranium-238 is essentially spent nuclear fuel.

Samples of uranium ore from Oklo (Gabon).

Who built the most complex nuclear reactor 2 billion years ago? The complex design of the reactor in Africa with its 16 power units speaks of the high technological level of its creators in those distant times.

For millions of years, the structures of the buildings of a nuclear reactor could crumble to dust. However, radioactive isotopes continue to emit energy after thousands of years. Spent uranium-238 speaks of thousands of years of operation of a giant nuclear reactor. Small remnants of uranium-235, which is used in energy production, point to the sites of fuel storage for the reactor of an ancient civilization.

There are facts, but science is silent about the ancient nuclear reactor

This is where the usual story begins, when modern science does not want to recognize the facts, passing them off as a mistake. If it cannot be recognized as a mistake, then these facts are simply hushed up. What happened to the ancient nuclear reactor of the past civilization in Gabon.

Versions of the origin of the ancient nuclear reactor

natural nuclear reactor

The most common version of scientists is that a natural nuclear reactor was found in Oklo. Allegedly rich uranium ores were flooded with water, which caused a nuclear reaction. There were no intelligible explanations of how “nature” managed to start the reactor and maintain its operation for thousands of years.

There are deposits of uranium-235 in different parts of the world, but there has not been a natural nuclear reactor reproducing the operation of at least one power unit. Recall that in Gabon found 16 pockets of spent nuclear fuel!

Nowhere else in the world have such huge reserves of spent uranium-238 been found. Physicists doubt that it is possible to produce this element in natural conditions in such quantities. Until now, uranium fission has been carried out only in an artificial environment with the help of a person.

Alien nuclear burial ground

This version is supported by the convenient location of uranium deposits. The Oklo area is characterized by a stable surface of the Earth. Reserves of uranium rest in the bowels of a thick basalt slab. There are no earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Aliens hypothetically could use this area to bury the remains of nuclear production. But did it make sense to do it on Earth? Doubts are added by the presence of uranium-235, as well as 16 foci, reminiscent of the design of a giant, once operating, reactor.

Folk legends

The legends and oral beliefs of the people inhabiting this area speak of an ancient race of demi-gods. In ancient times, according to legend, a developed powerful civilization lived in the province of Oklo, which was looking for treasure in the rocks in order to become invincible. Aborigines consider the place where the ancient nuclear reactor is located mysterious and mystical.

Perhaps scientists should have listened more seriously to the stories of local residents. Folk wisdom does not arise from scratch, but can serve as a source of knowledge for revealing the secrets of science and life.

Lessons from Past Civilizations

Today there are scientists and historians who understand that this Earth was inhabited by more than one of our civilizations. It is enough to recall the unique finds confirming that there was , , Mayan civilization, , humanity - how many mysterious ancient civilizations has our planet seen?

Many proofs of phenomena that are beyond the scope of modern science have already been found. , superpowers, ancient civilizations - all this could help people realize the meaning of their stay on Earth and prevent the sad end of our humanity.

Walking along the path of rejecting the divine principle of the world, scientists drive themselves into a corner with the narrow framework of scientific dogmas. The Creator's intention is difficult to understand for those living in a world of constant competition and struggle. If you choose the path of returning to your traditions, handed down by the Creator to people, you may be able to survive, unlike many other previous civilizations on Earth.

Korol A.Yu. - student of class 121 SNIEiP (Sevastopol National Institute of Nuclear Energy and Industry.)
Head - Ph.D. , Associate Professor of the Department of YaPPU SNYaEiP Vah I.V., st. Repina 14 sq. fifty

In Oklo (a uranium mine in the state of Gabon, near the equator, West Africa), a natural nuclear reactor operated 1900 million years ago. Six "reactor" zones were identified, in each of which signs of a fission reaction were found. Remains of actinide decays indicate that the reactor has operated in a slow boil mode for hundreds of thousands of years.

In May - June 1972, during routine measurements of the physical parameters of a batch of natural uranium that arrived at the enrichment plant in the French city of Pierrelate from the African Oklo deposit (a uranium mine in Gabon, a state located near the equator in West Africa), it was found that the isotope U - 235 in the incoming natural uranium is less than standard. It was found that uranium contains 0.7171% U - 235. The normal value for natural uranium is 0.7202%
U - 235. In all uranium minerals, in all rocks and natural waters of the Earth, as well as in lunar samples, this ratio is fulfilled. The Oklo deposit is so far the only case recorded in nature when this constancy was violated. The difference was insignificant - only 0.003%, but nevertheless it attracted the attention of technologists. There was a suspicion that there had been sabotage or theft of fissile material, i.e. U - 235. However, it turned out that the deviation in the content of U-235 was traced all the way to the source of uranium ore. There, some samples showed less than 0.44% U-235. Samples were taken throughout the mine and showed systematic decreases in U-235 across some veins. These ore veins were over 0.5 meters thick.
The suggestion that U-235 "burned out", as happens in the furnaces of nuclear power plants, at first sounded like a joke, although there were good reasons for this. Calculations have shown that if the mass fraction of groundwater in the reservoir is about 6% and if natural uranium is enriched to 3% U-235, then under these conditions a natural nuclear reactor can start working.
Since the mine is located in a tropical zone and quite close to the surface, the existence of a sufficient amount of groundwater is very likely. The ratio of uranium isotopes in the ore was unusual. U-235 and U-238 are radioactive isotopes with different half-lives. U-235 has a half-life of 700 million years, and U-238 decays with a half-life of 4.5 billion. The isotopic abundance of U-235 is in nature in the process of slowly changing. For example, 400 million years ago natural uranium should have contained 1% U-235, 1900 million years ago it was 3%, i.e. the required amount for the "criticality" of the vein of uranium ore. It is believed that this was when the Oklo reactor was in a state of operation. Six "reactor" zones were identified, in each of which signs of a fission reaction were found. For example, thorium from the decay of U-236 and bismuth from the decay of U-237 have only been found in the reactor zones in the Oklo field. Residues from the decay of actinides indicate that the reactor has been operating in a slow boiling mode for hundreds of thousands of years. The reactors were self-regulating, since too much power would lead to the complete boiling off of the water and to the shutdown of the reactor.
How did nature manage to create the conditions for a nuclear chain reaction? First, in the delta of the ancient river, a layer of sandstone rich in uranium ore was formed, which rested on a strong basalt bed. After another earthquake, common at that violent time, the basalt foundation of the future reactor sank several kilometers, pulling the uranium vein with it. The vein cracked, groundwater penetrated into the cracks. Then another cataclysm raised the entire "installation" to the current level. In nuclear furnaces of nuclear power plants, fuel is located in compact masses inside the moderator - a heterogeneous reactor. This is what happened in Oklo. Water served as a moderator. Clay "lenses" appeared in the ore, where the concentration of natural uranium increased from the usual 0.5% to 40%. How these compact lumps of uranium were formed is not precisely established. Perhaps they were created by seepage waters that carried away clay and rallied uranium into a single mass. As soon as the mass and thickness of the layers enriched with uranium reached critical dimensions, a chain reaction arose in them, and the installation began to work. As a result of the operation of the reactor, about 6 tons of fission products and 2.5 tons of plutonium were formed. Most of the radioactive waste remains inside the crystal structure of the mineral uranite, which is found in the body of the Oklo ores. Elements that could not penetrate the uranite lattice due to too large or too small ionic radius diffuse or leach out. In the 1900 million years since the Oklo reactors, at least half of the more than 30 fission products have been bound in the ore, despite the abundance of groundwater in this deposit. Associated fission products include the elements: La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Eu, Sm, Gd, Y, Zr, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ni, Ag. Some partial Pb migration was detected and Pu migration was limited to less than 10 meters. Only metals with valency 1 or 2, i.e. those with high water solubility were carried away. As expected, almost no Pb, Cs, Ba, and Cd remained in place. The isotopes of these elements have relatively short half-lives of tens of years or less, so that they decay to a non-radioactive state before they can migrate far in the soil. Of greatest interest from the point of view of long-term problems of environmental protection are the issues of plutonium migration. This nuclide is effectively bound for almost 2 million years. Since plutonium by now almost completely decays to U-235, its stability is evidenced by the absence of excess U-235 not only outside the reactor zone, but also outside the uranite grains, where plutonium was formed during the operation of the reactor.
This unique nature existed for about 600 thousand years and produced approximately 13,000,000 kW. hour of energy. Its average power is only 25 kW: 200 times less than that of the world's first nuclear power plant, which in 1954 provided electricity to the city of Obninsk near Moscow. But the energy of the natural reactor was not wasted: according to some hypotheses, it was the decay of radioactive elements that supplied energy to the warming Earth.
Perhaps the energy of similar nuclear reactors was added here. How many are hidden underground? And the reactor at that Oklo in that ancient time was certainly no exception. There are hypotheses that the work of such reactors "spurred" the development of living beings on earth, that the origin of life is associated with the influence of radioactivity. The data indicate a higher degree of evolution of organic matter as we approach the Oklo reactor. It could well have influenced the frequency of mutations of unicellular organisms that fell into the zone of increased radiation levels, which led to the appearance of human ancestors. In any case, life on Earth arose and went a long way of evolution at the level of the natural radiation background, which became a necessary element in the development of biological systems.
The creation of a nuclear reactor is an innovation that people are proud of. It turns out its creation has long been recorded in the patents of nature. Having designed a nuclear reactor, a masterpiece of scientific and technical thought, a person, in fact, turned out to be an imitator of nature, which created installations of this kind many millions of years ago.

Two billion years ago, in one of the places on our planet, geological conditions developed in an amazing way, accidentally and spontaneously forming a thermonuclear reactor. It worked stably for a million years, and its radioactive waste, again in a natural way, without threatening anyone, was stored in nature all the time that had passed since its stop. It would be nice to understand how he did it, wouldn't it?

Nuclear fission reaction (quick reference)

Before we begin the story of how this happened, let's quickly recall what a fission reaction is. It occurs when a heavy nuclear nucleus breaks up into lighter elements and free fragments, releasing a huge amount of energy. The mentioned fragments are small and light atomic nuclei. They are unstable and therefore extremely radioactive. They make up the bulk of hazardous waste in the nuclear power industry.

In addition, scattered neutrons are released, which are able to excite neighboring heavy nuclei to the state of fission. So, in fact, a chain reaction takes place, which can be controlled at the same nuclear power plants, providing energy for the needs of the population and the economy. An uncontrolled reaction can be catastrophically destructive. Therefore, when people build a nuclear reactor, they have to work hard and take a lot of precautions to start a thermonuclear reaction.

First of all, you need to make the heavy element divide - usually uranium is used for this purpose. In nature, it is mainly found in the form of three isotopes. The most common of these is uranium-238. It can be found in many places on the planet - on land and even in the oceans. However, by itself, it is not capable of division, as it is quite stable. On the other hand, uranium-235 has the instability we need, but its share in nature is only about 1 percent. Therefore, after mining, uranium is enriched - the share of uranium-235 in the total mass is brought to 3%.

But that's not all - for safety reasons, a fusion reactor needs a moderator for neutrons so that they remain in check and do not cause an uncontrolled reaction. Most reactors use water for this purpose. In addition, the control rods of these structures are made of materials that also absorb neutrons, such as silver. Water, in addition to its main function, cools the reactor. This is a simplified description of the technology, but even from it it is clear how complex it is. The best minds of mankind have spent decades to bring it to mind. And then we found out that exactly the same thing was created by nature, and by accident. There is something incredible in this, isn't there?

Gabon is the birthplace of nuclear reactors

However, here we must remember that two billion years ago there was much more uranium-235. For the reason that it decays much faster than uranium-238. In Gabon, in an area called Oklo, its concentration was sufficient to start a spontaneous thermonuclear reaction. Presumably, there was just the right amount of moderator in this place - most likely water, thanks to which the whole thing did not end with a grandiose explosion. Also in this environment there were no neutron-absorbing materials, as a result of which the fission reaction maintained itself for a long time.

It is the only natural nuclear reactor known to science. But this does not mean that he was always so unique. Others could have moved deep into the earth's crust as a result of the movement of tectonic plates or disappeared due to erosion. It's also possible that they just haven't been found yet. By the way, this natural Gabonese phenomenon also has not survived to this day - it is completely worked out by miners. It was thanks to this that they learned about him - they went deep into the earth in search of uranium for enrichment, and then returned to the surface, scratching their heads in puzzlement and trying to solve the dilemma - “Either someone stole almost 200 kilograms of uranium-235 from here, or this is a natural nuclear reactor who had already burned it completely.” The correct answer is after the second “either”, if someone did not follow the thread of the presentation.

Why is the Gabon reactor so important to science?

Nevertheless, it is a very important object for science. For the reason that it worked without harm to the environment for about a million years. Not a single gram of waste has leaked into nature, nothing in it has been affected! This is extremely unusual, because the by-products of uranium fission are extremely dangerous. We still don't know what to do with them. One of them is cesium. There are other elements that can directly harm human health, but it is because of cesium that the ruins of Chernobyl and Fukushima will pose a danger for a long time to come.

Gabonese natural nuclear reactor

Scientists who recently surveyed the mines in Oklo found that cesium in this natural reactor was absorbed and bound by another element - ruthenium. It is very rare in nature, and we cannot use it on an industrial scale to neutralize nuclear waste. But understanding how the reactor works can give us hope that we can find something similar and get rid of this long-standing problem for mankind.

Scattered all over the Earth are many so-called. nuclear repositories - places where spent nuclear fuel is stored. All of them were built in recent decades to safely hide the hugely dangerous by-products of nuclear power plants.

But humanity has nothing to do with one of the burial grounds: it is not known who built it and even when - scientists carefully determine its age at 1.8 billion years.

This object is not so much mysterious as surprising and unusual. And he is the only one on earth. At least the only one we know of. Something similar, only even more formidable, can lurk under the bottom of the seas, oceans, in the depths of mountain ranges. What do the vague rumors say about mysterious warm countries in the regions of mountain glaciers, in the Arctic and Antarctic? Something must keep them warm. But back to Oklo.

Africa. The same "Mysterious Black Continent".

2. Red dot - Republic of Gabon, a former French colony.

Oklo Province 1 , the most valuable mine of uranium. The same one that goes to fuel for nuclear power plants and stuffing for warheads.

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1 Mariinsk: I didn't find the Oklo province on the map, either due to ignorance of the French language, or due to a small number of scanned sources)).

3. According to Wiki, this is probably the Gabon province of Ogooué-Lolo (in French - Ogooué-Lolo - which can be read as “Oklo”).

Be that as it may, Oklo is one of the largest uranium deposits on the planet, and the French began to mine uranium there.

But, during the mining process, it turned out that the content of uranium-238 in the ore is too high in relation to the mined uranium-235. To put it simply, the mines contained not natural uranium, but spent fuel from a reactor.

An international scandal arose with the mention of terrorists, leakage of radioactive fuel and other completely incomprehensible things ... It is not clear, because what does this have to do with it? Did terrorists replace natural uranium, which also needed additional enrichment, with spent fuel?

Uranium ore from Oklo.
Most of all, scientists are frightened by the incomprehensible, therefore, in 1975, a scientific conference was held in the capital of Gabon, Libreville, at which atomic scientists were looking for an explanation for the phenomenon. After a long debate, they decided to consider the Oklo field the only natural nuclear reactor on Earth.

It turned out the following. Uranium ore was very rich and correct, but a couple of billion years ago. Since that time, presumably, very strange events have occurred: in Oklo, natural nuclear reactors based on slow neutrons have started working. It happened like this (let the nuclear physicists hunt me down in the comments, but I will explain it as I understand it myself).

Rich deposits of uranium, almost sufficient to start a nuclear reaction, were flooded with water. The charged particles emitted by the ore knocked out slow neutrons from the water, which, falling back into the ore, caused the release of new charged particles. A typical chain reaction began. Everything went to the fact that in the place of Gabon there would be a huge bay. But from the beginning of the nuclear reaction, the water boiled away, and the reaction stopped.

According to scientists, the reactions continued with a cycle of three hours. The reactor worked for the first half hour, the temperature rose to several hundred degrees, then the water boiled away and the reactor cooled down for two and a half hours. At this time, water seeped into the ore again, and the process began again. Until, over several hundred thousand years, the nuclear fuel has been so depleted that the reaction has ceased to occur. And everything calmed down until the appearance of French geologists in Gabon.

Mines in Oklo.

The conditions for the occurrence of such processes in uranium deposits are also in other places, but there it did not come to the start of the operation of nuclear reactors. Oklo remains the only place known to us on the planet where a natural nuclear reactor operated and as many as sixteen centers of spent uranium were found there.

So I want to ask:
- Sixteen power units?
Such phenomena rarely have only one explanation.
4.

Alternative point of view.
But not all conference participants made such a decision. A number of scientists called it far-fetched, not up to scrutiny. They relied on the opinion of the great Enrico Fermi, the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, who always maintained that a chain reaction can only be artificial - too many factors must coincide by chance. Any mathematician will say that the probability of this is so small that it can be uniquely equated to zero.

But if this suddenly happened and the stars, as they say, converged, then a self-controlled nuclear reaction for 500 thousand years ... At a nuclear power plant, several people monitor the operation of the reactor around the clock, constantly changing its operating modes, preventing the reactor from stopping or exploding. The slightest mistake - and get Chernobyl or Fukushima. And in Oklo, for half a million years, everything worked by itself?

The most stable version.
Those who disagree with the version of the natural nuclear reactor in the Gabon mine put forward their theory, according to which the reactor in Oklo is a creation of the mind. However, a mine in Gabon looks less like a nuclear reactor built by a high-tech civilization. However, the alternatives do not insist on this. In their opinion, the mine in Gabon was the place of disposal of spent nuclear fuel.
For this purpose, the place was chosen and prepared ideally: for half a million years, not a gram of radioactive material has penetrated into the environment from the basalt "sarcophagus".

The theory that the Oklo mine is a nuclear repository is technically much more apt than the "natural reactor" version. But closing some questions, she asks new ones.
After all, if there was a repository with spent nuclear fuel, then there was also a reactor from where these wastes were brought. Where does he go? And where did the civilization that built the burial ground disappear to?
For now, questions remain unanswered.