
Red Gate Woods: The final resting place of the world's first nuclear reactor - Cozumel
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/red-gate-woods
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friendly_chap
That sign is a bit weakly designed compared to this:
[http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%...](http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm)

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limaoscarjuliet
Exactly my thoughts. Also, despite the message being carved in stone, after
only 70 years it has deteriorated already. "There is XXX danger to visitors".
Irony?

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kabdib
Looks like vandalism.

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sophacles
I'm guessing it originally said "no danger". That gouge looks like the right
size for 2 letters.

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27182818284
Yes, I had the same though that there was vandalism taking away the "no" so
that it intentionally says it is dangerous

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klodolph
Technically, the world's first _artificial_ nuclear reactor. Some eyebrows
were raised (and some alarms—was someone stealing enriched uranium?) when they
found the resting place of a natural nuclear reactor in 1972.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor)

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gene-h
And we could have used them to answer some important questions in physics,
however, they got mined away:

[https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/in-
the-1970s-scien...](https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/in-
the-1970s-scientists-discovered-a-2-billion-year-old-nuclear-reactor-in-west-
africa-4472460b82c2#.u3tvy8ars)

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chiph
Back in high school, we took a tour of the Savannah River Site (this was
allowed in the late 70's). We saw things mostly by driving by in a tour bus,
but we did get to go into a few buildings, and try out a remote manipulator
system (harder than it looks to get good with it).

The relevant part was the waste processing area, which had a smokestack
(presumably for power). Painted eighty or a hundred feet up was a large
stripe. The guide said that that was how deep they were going to bury the
building once it had reached end of life.

Having just watched "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" I could imagine a future
where explorers go down the stack because they were attracted by the 50+ feet
that would remain above ground. Curiosity is hard to fight.

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coddingtonbear
You might be surprised, but you can _probably_ still get a tour of the
Savannah River Site (as long as you're a citizen). I know this because I took
a tour of it's sister site in Hanford, WA a year or so ago, and would totally
recommend it.

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mjevans
I've heard that many tours of facilities are less in-depth than they would
have been pre... recent notable historic events in the US.

I am thankful that I got to see the depths of major hydro-electric facilities
in my home state as a child. They inspired awe and wonder in our ability to
engineer massive things; though such words were not at all within my
vocabulary at that age.

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brian__c
Thanks to this, we have some great, legal mountain bike trails in the
Chicagoland area. If it wasn't for these reactors being buried there, it would
be full of McMansions and strip malls.

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Animats
Here's the remains of the SL-1 nuclear reactor, an experimental unit which had
a steam explosion and meltdown in 1961, with its marker.[1] It was at the
National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho, located in the middle of nowhere,
miles from the nearest other building, just in case. The SL-1 story is in
Wikipedia.

The marker is probably from 2000, when large rocks were placed over the entire
site. It already looks dated.

[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/SL-1Buri...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/SL-1Burial.jpg)

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kodt
If anyone wants to visit, you can find Site A pretty easily via Google Maps,
as someone has added a Historical Place marker for it (41.702199, -87.912165).
It's about a 15 minute walk from the nearest parking lot (41.709995,
-87.914131).

Plot M is about half a mile away from Site A, and is easily missed. If you
look on Google Maps for a small clearing just northeast of Site A, that is
where Plot M is. (41.707279, -87.910550)

The Forest Preserves of Cook County website has some good information about
the history of the site: [http://fpdcc.com/site-a/](http://fpdcc.com/site-a/)

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erentz
Nuclear history buffs should definitely check out the Manhatten Project B
Reactor if ever heading to Washington. Great tour.

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clintonb
Darn! I just returned from a trip to Washington. I wish I had known about the
reactor. I guess I have something to look forward to during my next trip!

Link for the curious:
[http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/](http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/)

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coddingtonbear
Don't feel too bad about missing it; you generally have to book tours many
months in advance.

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gene-h
It is now part of a national park:
[https://www.nps.gov/mapr/index.htm](https://www.nps.gov/mapr/index.htm)

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thexcguy
This is not far from where I grew up, and I've been there a few times. It's an
interesting site that's easy to miss if you're not looking for it.

Also, the trails around that part of the FPDCC system are amazing. They might
be the one thing I miss about suburban life.

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samgranieri
My parents live not that far from there, and I used to work at Argonne
National Labs. I thought the Chicago Pile waste was stored on site on the lab,
not in a forest preserve nearby

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ams6110
Used to take my dogs there to run around. Nice natural area.

