By studying how seismic waves travel through frozen soil on Earth, a University of Maryland geophysicist helped develop a better way to detect water ice on the moon—a critical resource for future astronauts and extended lunar missions.
Finding water on the moon may only be a matter of detecting the right vibrations.
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 in the journal Science Advances on July 31, 2026, come at a pivotal moment. NASA’s Artemis program is targeting the moon’s south polar region for crewed landings in 2028, and water ice hidden in the deep, frozen shadows of polar craters is considered one of the most valuable resources an astronaut can find. Melted and purified, the 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. “Since they will be limited by the few resources they brought from Earth, anything they find on the moon will help them basically live off the land, especially for longer-term missions or outposts.”
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.
The idea behind the team’s work was straightforward: 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, geology), a rock physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UMD alum, 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.
Beyond its practical value to astronauts, lunar ice also has scientific significance. The moon's shadowed craters can freeze and trap volatiles like water ice, preserving them undisturbed over long timescales—and because the lunar rocks themselves date back some four billion years, studying that ice could reveal how water was delivered to the early solar system.
“The moon witnessed some of the most critical parts of the early solar system, including how water was delivered,” Schmerr said. “Studying the ice deposited there could reveal how water spread and ultimately how Earth’s oceans formed.”
The researchers won’t have to wait long to put their predictions to the test. China’s Chang’e-7 mission, which will carry a seismometer, is expected to land near Shackleton Crater in late 2026, and there are numerous suspected ice deposits in its vicinity. In 2028, NASA's Artemis astronauts will potentially deploy the Lunar Environmental Monitoring Station, an instrument Schmerr helped develop for seismic exploration.
“Our findings are laying the groundwork for an observation we’ll get in the next couple of years,” Schmerr said. “No one has physically measured the ice on the moon yet, but we now have a prediction for what to look out for. That’s an important first step.”
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The paper, “The seismic signature of lunar ice,” was published in the journal Science Advances on July 31, 2026.
This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division (Contract No. DEAC02-05CH11231), and the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute CLEVER project (Grant No. GR00024738) and GEODES project (Grant No. 80NSSC19M0216). This article does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.
