Seismic waves from moonquakes could map buried lunar ice, study finds

Scientists from the University of Maryland, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Hawaii have demonstrated that seismic waves traveling through the Moon's subsurface can reveal buried water ice deposits that orbital instruments cannot reach.

The study, published July 31, 2026, in Science Advances, combined laboratory experiments on frozen volcanic rock analogs, thermal modeling of permanently shadowed polar craters, and computer simulations of small moonquakes propagating through ice-rich layers.

Ice fills pore spaces between grains of lunar regolith, making the material two to three times stiffer than dry soil and causing seismic vibrations to travel faster; ice-rich zones also reflect seismic energy, producing detectable echoes.

Nicholas Schmerr, associate professor of geological sciences at UMD and a co-author, said a seismometer placed at the right location could both confirm the presence of ice and estimate its abundance, a capability satellites lack because they only sense the uppermost surface layer.

NASA's Artemis program plans crewed landings near the lunar south pole in 2028, where water ice could supply drinking water, breathable oxygen, and hydrogen rocket fuel, reducing the mass that must be launched from Earth.

China's Chang'e-7 mission, expected to land near Shackleton Crater in late 2026, will carry a seismometer that could provide the first in-situ test of the predicted seismic signatures, and Artemis astronauts may deploy the Lunar Environmental Monitoring Station in 2028.

Beyond exploration logistics, deeply shadowed craters may preserve ice and other volatiles for billions of years, offering a record of how water was delivered to the early solar system and how Earth's oceans formed.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science and NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute through the CLEVER and GEODES projects.