The Gabon reactors

en.wikipedia.org...

In Gabon in West Africa there are sixteen nuclear fission reactors that have existed for billions (edited: millions to billions) of years. Are these remnants of an early hi-tech civilisation? Anyone?

[edit on 11/7/2008 by Neo Christian Mystic]

Howdy Neo

Your source provided you with the answer you were seeking. They went critical around 1.5 billion years ago, ran intermittently for a period of time of a few hundred thousand years then stopped.



Geological Situation in Gabon leading to natural nuclear fission reactors
1. Nuclear reactor zones
2. Sandstone
3. Uranium ore layer
4. Granite


Given the geology of the site and the complete lack of any other evidence, and agreement of the parameters of this operation with what would be expected from a natural reaction.

I'd say no



[edit on 11/7/08 by Hanslune]

For me the most interesting direction to take is to follow from the Native Americans and First Nations in Canada who maintain that uranium must not be stripped out of the Earth because it is vital to her living systems.

Against a background of those ancient aboriginal ideas, I then look at these reactors as part of the Earth's natural living process.

I read what the Wiki article said, but this article bases it's assumption on that they are natural, not sparked by intelligence. What if the Oklo fossil reactors are infact not reactors at all, but rather an ancient nuclear waste depot used by an ancient civilisation some 1.7 billion (edited: millions to billions) years ago?

Another one at www.ocrwm.doe.gov...

[edit on 11/7/2008 by Neo Christian Mystic]

[edit on 11/7/2008 by Neo Christian Mystic]

Howdy Neo

The second site repeats the information from the first cite. Oh and its 1.5-7 BILLION years ago.

A waste site, okay, so intelligent being used nuclear energy one point five billion years ago, then dumped it (not depleted and still usable)- and disposed of it by placing it back into veins of rock and then letting it obtain critical mass again and run for a few hundred thousand years -while at the same time, making it look natural.

Okay

I like to think that I'm pretty well informed about weird things on this planet, but I must admit..I've never heard of this!

What a great thought that this is Earth's own protective layer.
That's a great bit of info Pell.

Neo C.M. has a great take on this as well. An ancient Yucca mountain.

Very cool post!!

Yes, sorry BILLIONS hehe. I just find it strange that a fission chain reaction could occur naturally on Earth. And what do we know about what happens in a waste deposit during a time of nearly two billion years? For all we know non potent waste could reach critical mass under certain conditions or trigger other uranium isotopes to turn into plutonium. I am a novise at these questions, but it doesn't stop me from wondering how this whole Gabon thingy could happen naturally. And another thing. The ozone layer is about two billion years old. Were the Gabon reactors used by extra terrestrials or the angels of God to make ozone from let's say water in order to make land habitable?

[edit on 11/7/2008 by Neo Christian Mystic]

"The ozone layer is about two billion years old. Were the Gabon reactors used by extra terrestrials or the angels of God to make ozone from let's say water in order to make land habitable?"

An interesting idea, but I think we are getting into the realms of fantasy following this route. As a previous poster stated, the answers to the activity are explained in the article on wiki. In addition I find it hard to imagine why the proposed 'highly intelligent, high tech" lost civilisation or ETs would go to all the trouble of creating nuclear power using natural geology in a very limited landscape when surely such a society would be capable of producing purpose built installations for such activity.

An interesting topic though, not one I have looked into before.

Originally posted by Pellevoisin
For me the most interesting direction to take is to follow from the Native Americans and First Nations in Canada who maintain that uranium must not be stripped out of the Earth because it is vital to her living systems.

Hopi nation and Navajo say this. Uranium is the life-blood of the Earth according to them.

And what do we know about what happens in a waste deposit during a time of nearly two billion years?

Howdy Neo

We don't but we do understand fairly well what depleted uranium looks like - and this wasn't and from everything they learned from the site says its naturally occuring. Unique, interesting and a fabulous sign of what nature can get up to but a sign of aliens?

Possible but highly improbable from what we know now. IMHO

Geologists and nuclear scientists might be able to comment more clearly on this.

I checked and there is a Ph.d study on this subject but its in French.

The following are in English - tons of them

There are these other studies too
bulletin.geoscienceworld.org...

www.turpion.org...

arxiv.org...

www.pnas.org...



[edit on 11/7/08 by Hanslune]

THere is a new theory that matches well with computer models and observational data that suggests that uranium decay is responsible for our cores heat.

reply to post by punkinworks


Yes, I saw that too while researching this topic - I think its been confirmed by the production of isotopes of Helium.

Interesting that we live on a natural reactor.

Originally posted by Neo Christian Mystic
Yes, sorry BILLIONS hehe. I just find it strange that a fission chain reaction could occur naturally on Earth.

Stars themselves are undergoing both fission and fusion, and the elements they throw off tend to be radioactive which decay into more stable elements. The sun is actually a fairly poisonous star, giving off more radiation that some of the others.

For all we know non potent waste could reach critical mass under certain conditions or trigger other uranium isotopes to turn into plutonium.

Waste would be mixed elements... the ones in the natural reactors are fairly pure veins of the stuff. They aren't a consistant shape or size (as would happen if they were manufactured.)

The ozone layer is about two billion years old.

Why do you say that?

Were the Gabon reactors used by extra terrestrials or the angels of God to make ozone from let's say water in order to make land habitable?

No. The land was habitable more than 2 billion years ago. We find fossils from over 3 billion years ago.

Howdy Byrd

No. The land was habitable more than 2 billion years ago. We find fossils from over 3 billion years ago.

Did you mean to say the "oceans" were habitable? I thought the first land creatures didn't crawl up and out onto the shore line until around 500 million years ago with some theories throwing it back to one billion?

Byrd, as far as I knew, oxygen and ozone occured on the planet some 2 billion years ago, do a quick search and you'll see that early photosyntesis from primitive plants in the sea started producing oxygen some 2 billion years ago. I would still go many hundred million years before there was a breathable athmosphere for the lifeforms that needs oxygen to survive.

Modern scientists are not capable to know anything about what happened a billion years ago, let alone date whether or not something is even that old.

Originally posted by Hollywood11
Modern scientists are not capable to know anything about what happened a billion years ago, let alone date whether or not something is even that old.

Really Hollywood, how do you know that? Can you put some meat on those thin naysaying bones?

[edit on 15/7/08 by Hanslune]

my question is this. how did the native americans even know about uranium before it was taught to them by others. think that native americans were just jumping on the political bandwagon to stop research into nuclear sciences. they probably didn't want people making more nuclear bombs and reactors. but how'd they know about uranium before all of that stuff occured. I know uranium is natural and you can find it when digging for it, but how'd they know it was special. uranium doesn't look like much. sorta rust colored to brownish. or at least the uranium I saw at LA's valley college way way back in the day.

It's not about what uranium looks like, it's what it does. People living close to radioactive substances may experience birthdefects like extra arms etc. The way is short to start believing that uranium was used by the gods or mother earth to create the different species. Radioactivity manipulates DNA, that's the domain of a Creator or evolution if you like.

And another thing, use uranium like flint (well you need a bit more force, but the principle is the same), smash two rocks together and you have a bang. And that was probably what happened to the uranium in Gabon if it happened naturally. An earthquake or similar could trigger a uranium explosion, maybe even lightning, landslides and even meteorites etc., and if there is water present it might sustain a chain reaction for some time. There is water present in the Okla underground.

The mechanism from the link in the first post


The natural nuclear reactor formed when a uranium-rich mineral deposit became inundated with groundwater that acted as a neutron moderator, and a nuclear chain reaction took place. The heat generated from the nuclear fission caused the groundwater to boil away, which slowed or stopped the reaction. After cooling of the mineral deposit, short-lived fission product poisons decayed, the water returned and the reaction started again. These fission reactions were sustained for hundreds of thousands of years, until a chain reaction could no longer be supported.

Fission of uranium normally produces five known isotopes of the fission-product gas xenon; all five have been found trapped within novel aluminium foams in the remnants of the natural reactor, in varying concentrations. The concentrations of xenon isotopes, found trapped in mineral formations 2 billion years later, make it possible to calculate the specific time intervals of reactor operation: approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes.[3]

A key factor that made the reaction possible was that, at the time the reactor went critical, the fissile isotope 235U made up about 3% of the natural uranium, which is comparable to the amount used in some of today's reactors. (The remaining 97% was non-fissile 238U.) Because 235U has a shorter half life than 238U, and thus decays more rapidly, the current abundance of 235U in natural uranium is about 0.7%. A natural nuclear reactor is therefore no longer possible on Earth.

The Oklo uranium ore deposits are the only known in which natural nuclear reactors existed. Other rich uranium ore bodies would also have had sufficient uranium to support nuclear reactions at that time, but the combination of uranium, water and physical conditions needed to support the chain reaction was unique to the Oklo ore bodies.

I would also suggest that the Uranium "knowledge" is a latter day inclusion. Which is rather common in unstructured belief systems.