Vietnam formed a task force called GK1 to research how to safely detonate those mines during the war. According to them the mines at Hòn La were detonated due to lightning stroke nearby.

Source: all 11 members of GK1 were from my university. I still remember the first day at school and they were talking about how they provided engineering effort for the war (bazooka clone, sea mines clearance, 2nd Mig pilot to downed a B52 etc..) but I'm sure some of them are just propaganda.

> In the United States, sparks burst out of telegraph equipment, sometimes starting fires.

> Should such an event happen today—when our lives our so intricately linked to technology—the results could be catastrophic, causing mass power losses and disruptions to GPS and satellite communications.

I wonder what would be affected if this was to happen today. Would it only be power distribution, or telecoms as well?

Aren't electronics today more sturdy from am EM perspective than their counterparts in the 60s and 70s? Not that a strong solar flare couldn't cause problems regardless.

If they're specced to be (military, aerospace), sure. But the move from vacuum tubes to transistors, for all its incredible advantages, made everything a lot more EM vulnerable.

Quite the contrary: as silicon processes shrink, electronics become more vulnerable.

Curious if it set off mines underwater but had no effect on the planes flying above the area. You’d think they would at least have noticed some unusual radio interference.

(My partner just pointed out that it was probably Bruce the Shark that’s set them off. :P )

The planes were probably too small and far away to set off the detectors.

I think then statement was "wouldn't the planes have detected the solar storm" vs "wouldn't the planes have set them off"

also the output is an order of magnitude lower than a decent solar storm from that raging ball of hate that we circle...

to avoid such mines ships are de-magnetized. I never though heard of "over-pulse-magnetizing/etc." of de-mining ships (or even say low&slow flying planes) as a way to trigger those mines from a safe distance - a de-mining approach that the solar flare triggered explosions suggest.

Towing a magnetic field generator behind a boat or aircraft is a common minesweeping technique. The generator is usually mounted on a floating 'sled' to maximise depth capability, but aircraft-mounted degaussing coils were used in minesweeping by the British in WWII.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minesweeping