Check out part 2 for the full story (related video)! This was longer than 60 seconds, so I had to cut it in half.

In 1972, miners sent uranium ore samples to Francis Perrin, who realized the ore contained an anomaly. Most uranium ore contains around 0.720% Uranium-235, but this sample had 0.717%., a minor, yet significant difference. Further investigation of the Oklo Mine in Gabon, Africa revealed evidence of fission products, like those that would come from a modern nuclear reactor. Amazed by the finding, they soon stumbled onto another scientists research, Paul Kuroda who in 1956 predicted that natural nuclear reactors might exist, given the right conditions to spark and sustain fission. As it turns out, roughly 2 billion years ago in the location that is now Gabon Africa, with higher concentrations of Uranium-235 and a supply of water to act as a moderator, fission was sustained for several hundred thousand years, producing roughly the equivalent of 100kw of thermal energy. Most of the uranium at the Oklo sites has now been mined away, but thanks to efforts of researchers in the late 1990s, at least one of the mines has been partially preserved for study.
#history #sciencehistory #science #nuclearreactor #nuclearhistory #nuclear #earthhistory #radioactive #radioactivedecay #radiation #nature #uranium

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