Severe Distortion of the Apparent Resistivity Induced by the Super Geomagnetic Storm in May 2024

The potential hazard of geomagnetically induced current (GIC) in metallic pipelines caused by space weather events is a widely discussed topic. On 10–11 May 2024, a super geomagnetic storm with Kp = 9 comparable to the Halloween event in 2003 occurred. The storm induced GIC caused severe distortion in apparent resistivity is a novel phenomenon. Here, we studied an apparent resistivity observation network of China, which was severely affected by the GIC. The impact reached over 15 times the static daily variation, inducing the apparent resistivity values to be significantly distorted, with 35 of 70 stations observing resistivity changes over 1%. Additionally, some stereo observations had significant responses and appeared time-delay pattern reaching 24 hr. The induced polarization effect may involve and release the charges slowly, then delay the response pattern of apparent resistivity under the super storm. Effectively it is the first academic report of the GIC effect in apparent resistivity.