Are there nuclear reactors at Earth's core?
Nature News: Nuclear reactors could be burning deep beneath the ground, two scientists have claimed. They say that uranium could become sufficiently concentrated at the base of Earth’s mantle to ignite self-sustained nuclear fission, as in a human-made reactor.
This is not the first time that natural ‘georeactors’ deep inside Earth have been proposed, and the idea has previously been greeted with scepticism by geoscientists. But physicist Rob de Meijer of the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa, and geochemist Wim van Westrenen of the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, believe that their new proposal is more plausible.
Related Links
Assessing the feasibility and consequences of nuclear georeactors in the Earths core mantle boundary (2008)
Quest for a nuclear georeactor (2004)
This is not the first time that natural ‘georeactors’ deep inside Earth have been proposed, and the idea has previously been greeted with scepticism by geoscientists. But physicist Rob de Meijer of the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa, and geochemist Wim van Westrenen of the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, believe that their new proposal is more plausible.
Related Links
Assessing the feasibility and consequences of nuclear georeactors in the Earths core mantle boundary (2008)
Quest for a nuclear georeactor (2004)
