Recharge into granitic bedrock under a melting snowpack is being investigated as part of a study designed to understand hydrologic processes involving snow at Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Snowpack measurements, accompanied by water content and matric potential measurements of the soil under the snowpack, allowed for estimates of infiltration into the soil during snowmelt and percolation into the bedrock. During portions of the snowmelt period, infiltration rates into the soil exceeded the permeability of the bedrock and caused ponding to be sustained at the soil–bedrock interface. During a 5-d period with little measured snowmelt, drainage of the ponded water into the underlying fractured granitic [...]
