Researchers using sensitive gravity measurements have discovered a massive hidden ice reservoir buried beneath Mount Timpanogos in Utah. The subsurface ice body reaches up to 150 feet thick and holds enough water to fill roughly 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to a recent University of Utah study.
Hikers climbing toward Mount Timpanogos have spent generations walking past a lumpy pile of rubble sitting in a bowl-shaped basin below the peak. While locals often mistake the patches of snow around the site for a standard glacier, the real geological feature is hidden underneath. Geologists call this landform a rock glacier, where a thick blanket of loose rock and rubble insulates an underground ice core from the sun and heat.
Mapping Timpanogos Rock Glacier Without Digging
Studying what lies inside a rock glacier has traditionally challenged scientists because standard imaging tools like radar get scrambled by the loose rock and debris mixed throughout the structure. To solve this problem, a research team from the University of Utah and the Utah Geological Survey turned to a highly sensitive gravimeter as described by the University of Utah. Ice is less dense than solid rock, meaning a patch of ground sitting above a thick ice body registers a slightly weaker gravitational pull than an area sitting over solid bedrock.
Timpanogos Rock Glacier was selected for study because of its easy access from a trailhead and long history of what was known as Timpanogos Glacier,
really a rock glacier the whole time. Still, it’s a five-mile hike in with an elevation gain of 3,500 feet. Bronson Cvijanovich led field campaigns to Timpanogos Rock Glacier hauling sensitive instruments, including a state-of-the-art gravimeter, to the ice buried above Emerald Lake in the fall of 2024.
Between August and October of 2024, former graduate student Bronson Cvijanovich carried the sensitive instrument across the site. Over the course of six field forays, researchers took 232 separate gravity readings spaced roughly 25 meters apart in a grid atop the rock glacier. They also collected surface rock samples to measure density and used GPS equipment with centimeter-level precision to record the exact elevation of every reading.
Bayesian Statistics Reveal 150-Foot Ice Depths
Converting raw gravity numbers into a three-dimensional underground picture required extensive computer modeling. The research team utilized Bayesian statistics to process the data according to geophysics professor Michael Thorne, who noted that the team spent months of computation time running the models.
Michael Thorne, University of Utah
The resulting models revealed that the ice-rich core beneath Mount Timpanogos stretches 30 to 45 meters thick down the center of the landform, deepening to roughly 55 meters near its lower end. Altogether, the team estimates the mid-size rock pile stores about 1.55 million cubic meters of ice, consisting of roughly 83% ice and 17% loose rock debris detailed in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.
Understanding How Utah Rock Glaciers Form
A second study published by the same research group examined how these underground ice features form in the first place. Glaciology professor Leif Anderson explained the mechanism behind the terrain highlighted in university research.
Leif Anderson, University of Utah
While rock glaciers are common across the Wasatch and Uinta ranges as well as the La Sal Mountains near Moab, the new imaging technique provides a template to better estimate frozen water reserves stored throughout Utah’s mountainous terrain.
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