BYU Research Reveals Rock Glaciers Effect On Utah’s Year-round Water Supply

Glaciers high up in Utah mountains are a source of water. What students are studying at Brigham Young University is something called a rock glacier. There is much to understand about what a rock glacier is and how it stores water in Utah's mountains.

The Mystery of Summer Streams

I have been high up in the mountains in late summer when all the snow has melted, and yet, there are still small streams to hike over. I wondered where the water was coming from. You can see this in the rivers that continue to run through the canyons all year.

The answer is rock glaciers. These are the large rock fields above the tree line. These rock fields have frozen water contained in the stones and below the surface. The rocks shield the frozen water that continues to slowly melt all summer long.

Researching Water Storage in a Drought

With Utah in a long drought, students from BYU are hiking up mountains to study these rock glaciers and better understand how they work and how much water is stored there. Their research can help us better understand where water in the west.

They have made interesting observations about this little studied part of the water cycle. The rock glaciers slowly move down the mountain like a glacier does. However, the rate of movement is miniscule.

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It also feeds into underground aquifers that fill ground water and even underground reservoirs. It is fascinating how ice is stored in Utah's mountains and explains why the water still runs even when all the snow looks like it melted.