Claims that Californium has been discovered in Nigeria are FALSE.
The claims were made on various platforms — here, here, and here — and all state that the rare metal had been discovered in the West African country. Some claims add that californium was discovered in Borno state and attribute the information to Hamza al-Mustapha, a former army major and politician.
However, the claim cannot be true as californium is not found naturally in the Earth’s crust.
Californium was first produced in 1950 by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, for which it is named, who produced 5,000 atoms. It is a soft, silver-white metal that is highly radioactive.
Californium is not found “naturally in the Earth’s crust” and the largest amount of it made at one time was 10 mg, and 68 mg in total since 1975. Oak Ridge National Laboratory produces 70 per cent of the world’s californium.
The metal’s various uses include starting up nuclear reactors, metal detectors, identification of gold and silver ore, analysis of oil and water layers in wells, detection of metal stress in aeroplanes, detection of anti-tank mines, and moisture gauges to detect water.
PesaCheck has examined claims that californium was discovered in Nigeria and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms....
Times of Malta's editorial team has demanded that alleged money-launderer Chris Spiteri remove false claims posted on Facebook against journalist Jacob Borg. An alert has also been filed with the ...