Latest / PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast
Ancient Nukes: 1.9 Billion-Year-Old Nuclear Reactors
Did you know that nuclear fission reactions are natural? Uranium fission drives many types of nuclear power plants as well as nuclear weapons. However, these types of reactions occurred on Earth naturally, just billions of years ago. Today, we discuss the Oklo natural fission reactors in Gabon, Africa.
These natural reactors are not only amazingly cool, but they have a really interesting discovery story and they can teach us a lot about the overlap between nuclear physics and geoscience, how uranium deposits form, and what Earth's ancient atmosphere looked like!
These are important for…
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