Uranium

Science

2-Billion-Year-Old Nuclear Mega-Reactor Discovered in Africa

In 1972, a worker at a nuclear fuel processing plant noticed something suspicious in a routine analysis of uranium obtained from a normal mineral source from Africa. As is the case with all natural uranium, the material under study contained three isotopes — i.e. three forms with different atomic masses: uranium 238, the most abundant variety; uranium 234, the rarest;…