Solar Storms Could Be Up to 100x More Damaging if You Live Near Certain Rock Types

The type of rocks you live near could greatly affect how much your area could be damaged by massive solar flares in future, a study has found.

Usually all eyes are on the Sun in anticipation of a serious solar storm that threatens to incinerate delicate technology across the globe.

more…

Surprising.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Solar Storms Could Be Up to 100x More Damaging if You Live Near Certain Rock Types

The type of rocks you live near could greatly affect how much your area could be damaged by massive solar flares in future, a study has found.

Usually all eyes are on the Sun in anticipation of a serious solar storm that threatens to incinerate delicate technology across the globe.

more…

My kneejerk reaction was “what rot” but on reflection it does make sense – sort of.

Certainly, waterlogged soils would respond to the electromagnetic activity of solar storms. So effects would be seasonal and depend on the weather.

But would this geomagnetic variation have any effect on the safety of power grids?

Um, no?

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Solar Storms Could Be Up to 100x More Damaging if You Live Near Certain Rock Types

The type of rocks you live near could greatly affect how much your area could be damaged by massive solar flares in future, a study has found.

Usually all eyes are on the Sun in anticipation of a serious solar storm that threatens to incinerate delicate technology across the globe.

more…

My kneejerk reaction was “what rot” but on reflection it does make sense – sort of.

Certainly, waterlogged soils would respond to the electromagnetic activity of solar storms. So effects would be seasonal and depend on the weather.

But would this geomagnetic variation have any effect on the safety of power grids?

Um, no?

From what I gather from the article.

some rocks are more conductive than others, so it would depend where the power station and lines are.

I guess looking at satellite data and local data to see where it is best to place power stations and lines on the least conductive ground to help protect them when a storm of highly charged particles is raining down all around.

There’s both large scale and small scale data to look at.

Tau.Neutrino said:

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Solar Storms Could Be Up to 100x More Damaging if You Live Near Certain Rock Types

The type of rocks you live near could greatly affect how much your area could be damaged by massive solar flares in future, a study has found.

Usually all eyes are on the Sun in anticipation of a serious solar storm that threatens to incinerate delicate technology across the globe.

more…

My kneejerk reaction was “what rot” but on reflection it does make sense – sort of.

Certainly, waterlogged soils would respond to the electromagnetic activity of solar storms. So effects would be seasonal and depend on the weather.

But would this geomagnetic variation have any effect on the safety of power grids?

Um, no?

From what I gather from the article.

some rocks are more conductive than others, so it would depend where the power station and lines are.

I guess looking at satellite data and local data to see where it is best to place power stations and lines on the least conductive ground to help protect them when a storm of highly charged particles is raining down all around.

The article specifically says that that isn’t the best choice. Least conductive ground is not the best.

But it fails to say what the best choice is.