- August 04, 2026
- By Georgia Jiang
A new study by geologists at the University of Maryland, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Hawaii shows that seismic waves—the same kind of vibrations measured during earthquakes—could be used to locate and map ice buried beneath the lunar surface.
The team’s findings, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, come as NASA’s Artemis program is targeting the moon’s south polar region for crewed landings in 2028. Melted and purified, ice can become drinking water. Split apart with electricity, the ice yields oxygen to breathe and hydrogen for rocket fuel, which means that locating a steady supply of lunar ice could dramatically reduce what future missions need to haul from Earth.
“It’s crucial to identify any materials on the moon that an astronaut can make use of while they’re up there,” said Nicholas Schmerr, an associate professor in UMD’s Department of Geological, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences and a co-author of the study.
Right now, no one knows exactly how much ice is on the moon or where it is. Satellites can scan the lunar surface from orbit, but they can only see the top layer of soil. Deposits of water ice may lie much deeper inside—and that’s where this new research comes in.
Frozen soil and dry soil behave very differently when a seismic wave passes through them. Ice stiffens whatever it’s mixed into, making vibrations travel two to three times faster than they would through dry dirt. Ice-rich zones can also cause seismic energy to bounce back rather than pass through, much like how sounds can echo off a wall. Schmerr noted that a well-placed seismometer on the moon would be able to detect these effects.
“We can use seismic waves to not just see whether ice is present but also roughly how much of it there is,” he explained.
To test their theories, the researchers took three approaches. The study’s lead author, Harrison Lisabeth Ph.D. ’16, a rock physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, froze a volcanic rock from Arizona that when crushed, closely mimics moon dust. He then used X-rays to study how ice settles into tiny gaps between soil grains. Co-author Matthew Siegler from the University of Hawaii modeled detailed temperature maps of the moon’s south polar region, identifying which craters stayed cold enough to preserve ice for billions of years. At UMD, Schmerr ran computer simulations of small moonquakes rippling through and interacting with underground lunar ice. In every case, the ice left clear and measurable marks on the seismic data.
This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute CLEVER project and GEODES project.