00:37 Rock Beneath Eastern Seaboard Could Intensify Solar Storms A rock beneath the Eastern Seaboard could mean big trouble during a major solar storm.

At a Glance A 300-million-year-old rock beneath the I-95 corridor could make a large solar storm even worse, a new USGS report found.

That's because the rock would send the energy back up to the surface, doubling the impacts.

The scientists said the study will help grid operators better understand what could happen during a severe geomagnetic storm.

The makeup of the Earth beneath the Interstate 95 corridor could prove especially problematic in the event of a major solar storm, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a new report.

According to Bloomberg, the soon-to-be-released report found a 300-million-year-old rock beneath the surface of the Eastern Seaboard could amplify the next big solar storm all the way from Washington D.C. to Maine. The makeup of this rock wouldn't allow the solar energy to go through it and would instead ricochet it back up to the surface, doubling the impacts in this region, the report also said.

"It’s an active problem that a lot of people are trying to solve and understand," Space Weather Prediction Center scientist Christopher Balch told Bloomberg.

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It's believed that the type of geomagnetic storm capable of wiping out the grid happens once every century, but a worst-case scenario might result in widespread blackouts that could last for months, the Space Weather Prediction Center told Bloomberg.

USGS research geophysicist Jeffrey Love told Bloomberg that the new report is particularly important because the mid-Atlantic and Northeast hadn't been previously studied in-depth with regards to how its geology would impact solar storms. Only the central U.S. was studied in this way, he added.

Next, Love and his team of scientists hope to map the Southwest; models are being developed so grid operators can better understand the impacts of geomagnetic storms on each region of the country, the report added.

"We only really have roughly 35 years of digital data," Balch told Bloomberg. "Earth conductivity is something that is just beginning to be available in more realistic types of models."