2 billion-year-old African nuclear reactor proves that Mother Nature still has a few tricks up her s [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

In Gabon, Africa, the Oklo-Reactor is one of the most intriguing geologic formations on the Earth. In two billion-year-old rocks, natural fissile materials have sustained a slow nuclear fission reaction, as found in a modern nuclear reactor.



With a half-life of 700 million years, uranium-235 is a radioactive element. Traces of it are found in almost all rocks, especially magmatic rocks, and its decay is believed to be one of the sources of Earth’s inner heat. Because it decays over time at a constant rate, its concentration in the Earth’s crust is almost everywhere the same – except in Oklo.

A succession of sandstone and siltstone, the Oklo-Formation, was deposited by a large river two billion years ago. Microbial activity of the first lifeforms caused the element uranium, derived from weathered magmatic rocks, to become concentrated in certain layers of the sediments. Later tectonic movements buried the layers deep underground.



Simplified geology of the Oklo-Okèlobondo natural nuclear reactors.

In 1972, chemical analysis showed an unusually low concentration of uranium-235 in the ore mined in the Oklo open pit mine. However, there were high concentrations of elements like cesium, curium, americium and even plutonium to be found. Such elements are formed today only in nuclear reactors, as the uranium decays during controlled nuclear fission.

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