It is believed that man is much more sophisticated than nature and creates such things that she cannot think of, for example, a wheel or a nuclear reactor. We agree about the wheel, but about the reactor there was a mistake.
It all started with an emergency In May 1972, another batch of natural uranium from the Oklo deposit (Gabon, West Africa) arrived at the French enrichment plant in the city of Pierlate. This time the analysis was carried out by a meticulous chemist, who noticed that the content of U-235 in the ore is 0.7171%, while in all ores this indicator is 0.7202%. The deviation is scanty, 0.003%, and yet the laboratory assistant considered it his duty to report this to his superiors.
It was not the bosses who were the first to be alarmed, but the French special services: is there a theft of uranium by terrorists? An atomic bomb is not dynamite, when it explodes, it will not seem a little. The officers went through the entire raw material delivery chain and found that ore with a reduced U-235 content was already being raised from the mine. At some points in the mine, samples contained less than 0.44% U-235. Special agents breathed a sigh of relief, the case was closed.
But now the geologists were running in. The content of U-235 in natural uranium is a constant value. It is observed in all terrestrial uranium ores and even in lunar samples. And then 0.44%! Why?!
The version put forward for the first time that U-325 "burned out" as a result of a nuclear reaction sounded like a joke, but nuclear physicists calmly noticed that they did not see anything funny in this.
NPP without man
Back in 1956, an American scientist of Japanese origin Paul Kuroda described in detail the conditions under which a self-sustaining nuclear reaction could begin in a uranium deposit. The size of the deposit, the concentration of U-235, the presence of a reaction moderator, the absence of boron and lithium, which absorb neutrons and can stop the reaction - the combination of conditions should be unique, but theoretically it is quite possible. This is how it all developed 1.8 billion years ago in Africa.
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Subsequent expeditions to Oklo revealed an abnormally low percentage of Nd-142 and Ru-100 isotopes in the ore and a high proportion of Nd-143 and Ru-99 isotopes in ores, which are nothing more than decay products.
We will omit a detailed description of the technology of operation of a natural nuclear reactor, it is unlikely that the overwhelming majority of readers will understand and be interested in technical and scientific details. The information is not classified, there is plenty of it on the Internet. Let's just say that, flashing, then extinguishing, the slow boiling nuclear reactor worked for about 500,000 years, burning more than 5 tons of U-235, until the isotope was exhausted.
One could stop at this, but if you start unwinding the ball further, very interesting versions and hypotheses come to light.
Nuclear reaction as a factor in biological development
The "nuclear reactor" in Oklo "switched on" when the first multicellular organisms just appeared on our planet. Did the reactor influence them? Certainly. There was no radiation protection around the "reactor", and all organisms that got into the "NPP" area received their dose of radiation.
Was she great? Yes, the point is that the Oklo reactor is the general name for 16 reactors operating simultaneously in three different parts of the field. Their radiation could well lead to the appearance of a huge number of mutated organisms. Most of the mutants died out as non-viable. But the survivors were already at a higher stage of development.
And who said the Oklo reactor was the only one? And if there were several of them, located in different parts of the planet? Paul Kuroda spent 20 years looking for confirmation of his theory about the possibility of the existence of natural nuclear reactors. So far, Oklo is considered the only one. But maybe others will be found tomorrow?
"Trigger"?
We are used to seeing Darwin's theory of evolution as a smooth progressive process. However, paleontologists know that there were "leaps" and "leaps" in the development of life on Earth. There are dozens of theories about what could have caused them. Let's add one more.
The Oklo reactor “boiled” peacefully for 500,000 years until it died out due to natural causes. The water present in the field regularly cooled the reactor, stopping the reaction. An interruption in the water supply - and an atomic explosion.
If there were other natural nuclear power plants, some of them could well have exploded. Here is the "trigger" for you, the cause of the death of dinosaurs, the transformation of a monkey into a man, and other phenomena and events that science is unable to explain, up to the global flood and the death of Atlantis.
The final riddle
Nuclear reactor technology is not such a big scientific secret. But very few people can bring it to life due to technical difficulties. Keeping a nuclear reaction going on a constant basis is incredibly difficult. At each nuclear power plant, the duty shift monitors the operation of the reactor around the clock and changes its operating modes so that the duty does not end with another Chernobyl. One step to the right, one step to the left - and the reactor will either go out or explode.
The Oklo reactor has worked trouble-free not a year, not ten - 500,000 years. Who has ensured Oklo's trouble-free operation for such a long time? WHO?