Re: nuclear "blast"

[VanKathy@aol.com]

I was familiar with the Oklo reacter, and I have no problem with a naturally
occurring nuclear fission reactor especially during earth's infancy. 

I have worked on both fission and fission/fussion/fission devices, and
understand their simplicity -- indeed it was actually an effort to keep some
weapons from going critical -- but also am very aware of the difficult
process of producing the materials necessary to construct the devices.  

The primary problem for a naturally occurring fission explosion (whoop's --
according to some people's reasoning _all_ nuclear explosions are natural, as
is the New York skyline and Spam) is that the materials volatile enough to
construct bombs with have half-lives so short that any geological process
that could concentrate enough appropriate materials would take so long that
most of the material would be depleted.

After re-reading my original message, it struck me as sounding like I was
picking on Flyinggoat, but that was not my intention.  Ms C., I enjoy your
posts, and I'm sorry if I came across a little gruff.

Oh, and while I'm doing this mushy stuff, M. Rowe, I owe you a belated thanks
for the bird material you sent me a while back.

Van S.