Two Billion Year Old Nuclear Reactor

i Was reading an article When i came across this. this is cool and very interesting. I think its real.

Oklo: Ancient African Nuclear Reactor Oklo:


The remnants of nuclear reactors nearly two billion years old were found in the 1970s in Africa. These reactors are thought to have occurred naturally. No natural reactors exist today, since the relative density of fissile uranium has now decayed below that needed for a sustainable reaction. Pictured above is Fossil Reactor 15, located in Oklo, Gabon. Uranium oxide remains are visible as the yellowish rock. Oklo by-products are being used today to study the stability of the fundamental constants over cosmological time-scales and to develop more effective means for disposing of human-manufactured nuclear waste.



In 1972, a French company imported some uranium ore from Oklo in the Gabon Republic in Africa. Surprisingly the uranium concentration in the ore was as low as spent uranium fuel from a nuclear reactor.



The finding led scientists to believe that the uranium had already been used for energy production. This discovery shocked the world and attracted scientists from many countries to go to Oklo for further investigation.



The results showed that the uranium mine was an ancient nuclear reactor. The ancient reactor consisted of five hundred tons of utilized uranium ore in six different areas. Its output power was estimated to be approximately one hundred kilowatts.

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[edit on 24-8-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

Yeah, it's quite real!

I remember reading about this myself many moons ago.

Quite interesting

This is the first I heard about this Its finds like these that make me wonder what else is found around the world. And what the story really is this reactor? Maybe Credo Mutwa knows something about this.. I will email him

Here is a discussion on how the natural reactor may have worked

www.ocrwm.doe.gov...

There is so much evidence out there of modern cities dating back to the stone age, running water, dentists tools, electricity, it tells us that mankind accomplishes all these things and then they self destruct. Then man re invents the wheel again....Its never ending cycles.
Its amazing!

Howdy Dgtempe

Please define 'Modern'

Various early civilization had running water, dentist tools but no electricity (the first sign of that is 660 AD the famous Baghdad batteries.

Do cultures run down then up? Yep The Tasmans are a good example of that as are the Chinese, Arabs and of course the Europeans gave us a good example of cyclical civilization. However at this time there is no evidence of any civilization having come up to 'modern' standards previously. We've been looking for over 130 years and still ....

Originally posted by Hanslune
Do cultures run down then up?

It would appear so. The book "The Twelfth Planet" has insight into this.

The OP didn't post other important parts of that reactor article, stating that it may have been from an advanced civilization 2 billion years old. What I find most interesting is that theories of lunar artifacts (which could be fact, just kept hidden from the general public) including the huge cigar shaped thing in the moon photos, are thought to be 2 billion years old.

It would seem that, from ancient texts and artifacts found throughout the world, especially that of Mesopotamian society, human civilization evolves and then devolves. We have probably destroyed ourselves in nuclear holocausts thousand of times already.

*I read somewhere (on ATS I believe) that x-ray and gamma ray spectroscopy studies were conducted on parts of the earth from airplanes or satellites (I don't remember which). The person stated that areas all over the world, including holy sites like Jerusalem, showed huge black radial spots on the photographs. The same spots were shown over areas such as New Mexico, where known nuclear detonations have occured. As far as we know, no nuclear bombs have been detonated in Jerusalem, at least not during "our" civilization. So could nuclear holocausts have happened all over the world some time in the distant past? I wouldn't discard the possibility.

*If someone remembers the article where this was mentioned, please point me to it. I'd like to do further research on the subject. Thanks.

Howdy pjslug

It would appear so. The book "The Twelfth Planet" has insight into this.
Hans: Sitchin, is unfortunately very guilty of making up stuff and is notorious unreliable. With the availability of the Sumerian text online one can easily detect his deliberate.

The OP didn't post other important parts of that reactor article, stating that it may have been from an advanced civilization 2 billion years old.
Hans: As it was underground and a natural deposit this would appear unlikely.
What I find most interesting is that theories of lunar artifacts (which could be fact, just kept hidden from the general public) including the huge cigar shaped thing in the moon photos, are thought to be 2 billion years old.
Hans: Glorious speculation but without evidence. I suspect NASA and the Soviets would have had a great deal of difficulty hiding something they would have both loved to have found.

It would seem that, from ancient texts and artifacts found throughout the world, especially that of Mesopotamian society, human civilization evolves and then devolves.
Hans: Not from anything I’ve seen. What makes you believe this?
We have probably destroyed ourselves in nuclear holocausts thousand of times already.
Hans: Although possible I wouldn’t think in probable. No evidence exists for nuclear explosion or a nuclear processing capacity prior to our own.
*I read somewhere (on ATS I believe) that x-ray and gamma ray spectroscopy studies were conducted on parts of the earth from airplanes or satellites (I don't remember which). The person stated that areas all over the world, including holy sites like Jerusalem, showed huge black radial spots on the photographs. The same spots were shown over areas such as New Mexico, where known nuclear detonations have occured. As far as we know, no nuclear bombs have been detonated in Jerusalem, at least not during "our" civilization. So could nuclear holocausts have happened all over the world some time in the distant past? I wouldn't discard the possibility.
Hans: Based on the known evidence there has been no evidence of nuclear war or an advanced civilization on this planet.

reply to post by Hanslune


Please use the quoting tool next time. It makes it much easier to read the areas of the text that are yours and mine.

The evidence would be the studies that I mentioned in the post.

And as far as proof that a two billion year old civilization existed, well of course it wouldn't still be here. Let's assume you erradicated all life on earth thousands of times before, nothing would be left. We aren't talking about one singular world war 3 type event where you would have remains of buildings.... you would have thousands of such events tearing down civilizations over and over and over again over billions of years. Let's not forget the Chixalub meteor impact some 65 million years ago. That would have wiped out any evidence of a civilization at that time and any that came before it.

but....the fossil records shows no humans. Lots of other critters but no humans until late late in the age of mammals.

We can detect life back to three billion + years, if they had a civilization similar in its use of materials as we have now, it would be detectable in the sedimentary rock.

Are you talking human or inhuman civilizations? Inhuman would be a lot more plausible

Thanks for the tip on the quoter

Originally posted by Hanslune
Are you talking human or inhuman civilizations? Inhuman would be a lot more plausible

I'm not sure, but I would venture to say human. More importantly would be that they were an advanced civilization.

We can't be so sure that there would be a fossil record, just as we can't be sure that there isn't. If you are at ground zero when a nuclear weapon explodes, you are vaporized. No bones, no remains, no fossils. If there were weapons that existed that were so colossal (perhaps hundreds of times bigger than the 1 megaton warheads in our arsennal today), they could have easily vaporized all life without leaving fossils behind.

However, if there are fossil remains from that long ago, they could be buried so far under earth that we have yet to dig that deep. They could also be hidden under thousands of feet of water, buried deep in the ocean.

We know so little about the planet we live on. We only know for certain about geology in the earth's crust. We can only speculate about the workings of the earth's mantle and core. We can only speculate about lifeforms which may exist at the deepest parts of the ocean, or even deeper inside the earth. We don't know for certain what prehistoric event may have happened, either naturally occuring or manmade, that could have wiped out most human life on the planet. Without witnessing the event firsthand, we can't even say for sure if it was a meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Although extremely unlikely, we can't say for sure that an alien spaceship didn't engage the earth with some type of massive weapon.

There are several of these scattered around the world, including one here in Virginia. They actually were not nuclear reactors per say but were rather dense enough concentrations of uranium that they maintained a low grade reaction. They are probably from one of the thousands of meteorites that bombarded the planet in those days.

[edit on 27-8-2007 by grover]

A ground burst weapon will melt the ground but that in itself leaves a detectable mark. There are a number of places on earth where meteorites have hit or exploded above ground and have left a detectable mark. Plus unless you cover every square centimeter of ground you’re not going to get everything-plus the radiation and particles would be conserved. Underground items and those in bodies of water would survive also.

Materials from billions to millions of years ago are found on the surface it depends on geological forces. I think we could agree that something might be found in the future but as of yet nothing has been. Evolutionaryfossils shows no human type creature before 10 million years but lots of other critters going back billions of years.

It all comes back to maybe

The devolving civilization theories will never die, as there's too much indicating the opposite, and way too much 'wishful thinking' in this arena. I for one wouldn't put the idea out of the question, but I've got another take on it as well.

As pointed out earlier in this thread, there's a few indications that advanced civilization(s) inhabited this planet before us. But perhaps, and maybe just for the sake of our own future as a civilization, we should take a more optimistic perspective on these theories. Maybe these advanced civilizations, be them human or not, didn't destroy themselves. Maybe they just packed up and left when the time came. On to greener pastures as they say. Perhaps one day, we'll do the same.

Howdy Unit

What are these indications?

Heh, this could bring up lots of possibilities as to what the past was like. Perhaps if Civilizations knew how to use it, they were able to harness the power of it?

Let's throw Atlantis in here as an example. What if they knew how to harness the power of the Nuclear reactor? Then they suddenly invented the Nuclear bomb and blew everything out? Bye bye advanced civilizations! Haha..

Originally posted by TsunamiLight
Heh, this could bring up lots of possibilities as to what the past was like. Perhaps if Civilizations knew how to use it, they were able to harness the power of it?

Let's throw Atlantis in here as an example. What if they knew how to harness the power of the Nuclear reactor? Then they suddenly invented the Nuclear bomb and blew everything out? Bye bye advanced civilizations! Haha..

Except the armies of Atlantis were defeated by Bronze Age Athenian armies. That's what Plato, the originator of the story, said.

There's no way that 10,000 or even 100,000 soldiers armed with rather bad bronze swords and shields and wearing leather armor are going to be able to stand against tanks, "bunker buster" bombs, and nuclear weapons.

I would like to draw everyone's attention to this little bit here:

Originally posted by zakd619

Oklo: Ancient African Nuclear Reactor Oklo:


The remnants of nuclear reactors nearly two billion years old were found in the 1970s in Africa. These reactors are thought to have occurred naturally. No natural reactors exist today, since the relative density of fissile uranium has now decayed below that needed for a sustainable reaction.

Emphasis mine.

Now, this would suggest that there was no ancient civilization that made this; that in fact, it was the Earth that managed to create this reactor during her creation so long ago.

Subtle nuances can drastically change the meanings of statements, as can be witnessed by the above quote.

Something to consider anyway. My $0.02.

TheBorg

reply to post by TheBorg

Subtle nuances can drastically change the meanings of statements, as can be witnessed by the above quote.

Right very much so, as I was hoping to dig further into this. But as it stands, being under Natural creation, pretty much wipes out my ties with the helium3 theory I was going for on this one..
Helium3 is used in reactors and such, and was hoping to find a link to this substance in liquid form in the reactor, tho I couldnt find enough information to properly link the two.. Your thoughts on this Borg?

reply to post by zakd619


There are a number of ancient cultures in the world that hold that uranium is Mother Earth's lifeblood and must not be disturbed or dug out of the earth.

Some Amerindians -- especially in the US Southwest -- have this belief in some form. It is one of the bits of native wisdom that has always struck me as very significant particularly as it stands completely contrary to the Western accepted system of mining the Earth.

[edit on 8/9/07 by Pellevoisin]