Oklo natural reactor6/30/2023 ![]() ![]() This could be achieved by studying the deviations in the 2 H/ 1 H and 18 O/ 16 O ratios of minerals at Oklo. Generalized conclusions applicable to other nuclear waste repository would require the quantitative reconstruction of t s coupled thermo-hydrologic-chemical processes. Even though the vast data base available at present can provide only a site specific description of the phenomenon, already this material gives relevant information on plutonium retention, metamictization, fission product release, hydrogeochemical stability and migration of fission products. Published as well as unpublished material on the Oklo natural reactors in Gabon was evaluated with regard to the long-term aspects of nuclear waste disposal. Oklo natural reactors: geological and geochemical conditions The author gives some explanations presently given to the Oklo phenomenon, and wanders whether Oklo is a natural analogue of geological storage The Oklo natural nuclear reactors in GabonĪfter a recall of the first experiments of fission chain reaction within the first man-made nuclear reactor, the author describes how the formation of the Earth resulted in the presence of radioactive isotopes, and recalls how the existence of the natural reactor was discovered in the 1970's: measurements revealed a content of uranium hexafluoride which was abnormally but only slightly smaller than normal. The evidence of the existence of natural reactors was shown. The abnormality in the U-235 abundance in natural uranium was found, and the cause was pursued. ![]() When the concentration of U-235 lowered, the reaction stopped naturally. The natural reactors were generated spontaneously in uranium deposits about 1.7 billion years ago when the isotopic abundance of U-235 was 3 %, and the chain reaction started naturally. At present, 12 natural reactors have been found in the vicinity of the Oklo deposit. The chance of investigating into this fact and visiting the Oklo deposit by the favor of COMUF, the owner of the Oklo deposit, was given, therefore, the state of the natural reactors, which has been known so far, is reported. This fact was immediately informed to the whole world, but in Japan, its details have not necessarily been well known. In 1972, 18 years after that, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique published that in the Oklo uranium deposit in Gabon, Africa, a natural nuclear reactor was found. In 1954, Professor Kazuo, Kuroda of Arkansas University in USA published the possibility that spontaneously generated natural nuclear reactors existed in prehistoric age. At that time the natural uranium had a concentration of about 3% 235U, and could have reached criticality with natural water as neutron moderator allowed by the special geometry of the deposit.International Nuclear Information System (INIS) They concluded that the deposit had been in a reactor: a natural nuclear fission reactor, around 1.8 to 1.7 billion years BP – in the Paleoproterozoic Era during Precambrian times. When geologists investigated they also found products typical of a reactor. Some of the mined uranium was found to have a lower concentration of uranium-235 than expected, as if it had already been in a reactor. Currently, mine reclamation work is ongoing in the region affected by the mine operations. Today the uranium deposits are exhausted, and the mine is no longer worked. Once extracted, the uranium was used for electricity production in France and much of Europe. ![]() France immediately opened mines operated by Comuf ( Compagnie des Mines d'Uranium de Franceville code: fra promoted to code: fr ) near Mounana village to exploit the vast mineral resources, and the State of Gabon was given a minority share in the company.įor 40 years, France mined uranium in Gabon. ![]() Gabon was a French colony when prospectors from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (the industrial parts, which later became Orano Cycle) discovered uranium in the remote region in 1956. Several natural nuclear fission reactors were discovered in the uranium mines in the region in 1972. Oklo is a region near the town of Franceville, in the Haut-Ogooué province of the Central African country of Gabon. ![]()
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