Recently, researchers from Stanford flew California skies on a kind of airborne treasure hunt. Probing hundreds of feet into the ground with electromagnetic signals, they were in search of liquid gold – water, or more precisely a place to capture and store it. … [Rosemary Knight, Ph.D., a researcher with the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability] just released a new study, confirming the airborne technology’s ability to locate what is now popularly called “paleo valleys.” They’re long, buried riverbed pathways created thousands of years ago by the movement of glaciers that once covered the Sierra. Filled with porous material, experts believe they could act like a high-speed express lane to carry diverted flood water deep into the aquifer.