'Geology can make the risks of solar storms 1000 times worse': Below the US is a 200-kilometer-thick lost…
- Ancient underground rocks could sharply intensify solar storm damage across eastern America
- Hidden crust beneath the United States redirects dangerous electrical currents upward
- Scientists mapped a buried geological structure stretching from Maine to Georgia
Buried deep beneath the eastern United States lies a massive chunk of ancient crust that has remained hidden from scientists for millions of years, but it is not harmless.
This lost basement, known as the Piedmont Resistor, runs from Maine all the way down to Georgia.
It measures roughly 200 kilometers thick and was formed during the violent breakup of the supercontinent, Pangaea, during the Jurassic Period about 200 million years ago.
Listening to the Earth's electrical whispers
The National Science Foundation funded a Magnetotelluric Array, a network of 1,800 temporary stations placed across the United States to study this palaeo-basement.
These stations measured how well deep rocks conduct electricity by detecting currents induced by shifting...
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