system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Have transuranic elements EVER existed in nature?

I hear it thrown around frequently that Uranium (also sometimes Plutonium) is the heaviest element which occurs naturally. I have recently learned, however, that the Oklo natural fission reactor is known to have at one time produced elements as heavy as Fermium. When the phrase "heaviest natural element" is used, how exact is that statement? Is there an atomic weight where it is theoretically impossible for a single atom to have once existed? For example, is there no possible scenario in which a single atom of Rutherfordium once existed without human intervention? If this is the case, what is the limiting factor? If not, is it simply the fact that increasing weights after uranium are EXTREMELY unlikely to form, but it is possible that trace amounts have come into existence in the last 14 billion years?
gpt
It's likely that these unstable heavy elements are naturally created in small amounts during super energetic events like neutron star collisions. But since they're so unstable, a short time later they've pretty much all decayed into lighter elements. This is why we don't see them around us.