When researchers at the University of New Hampshire began analyzing geographic features on their campus, they made a surprising discovery: a set of hidden ridges that may have been left behind as glaciers retreated from New England during the Ice Age over 15,000 years ago.

Joe Licciardi, an earth sciences professor at UNH, helped graduate student Samantha Sinclair in leading the study, which was recently published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.

Licciardi said the study was conducted using technology called LiDAR, which uses lasers to scan surfaces. It can show the underlying features of a landscape while filtering out trees and buildings.

The technology has revolutionized the work of scientists, who have recently used it to map a huge Mayan civilation in Guatemala and to pinpoint a long-lost city in southern Africa.

When the UNH team studied the imaging of the university’s campus, Licciardi said, they noticed a series of ridges that looked “very much like a washboard in regular, repeated patterns.’’

“We very quickly determined that they had something to do with the glaciation of this area,’’ he said. “Each ridge was marking where the ice used to be at some point in the past.’’

Licciardi said they discovered 16 “swarms’’ of ridges in the New Hampshire seacoast area, the largest one on their campus in Durham, with an area of about 10 square miles.

The researchers believe that the ridges formed every year as the Laurentide Ice Sheet moved back and forth, likely advancing in winter then retreating in the summer, depositing earth and rocks as it went. The ice sheet once covered much of Canada and the northern United States.

Licciardi said the washboard ridges, called De Geer moraines, are “pretty special.’’

“They don’t occur in too many places elsewhere in the world,’’ he said. “These types of features were first discovered in Scandinavia. The ridges are special, but the way that we figured out how they formed is something that could be applied pretty much anywhere.’’

Licciardi said he predicts that more researchers will use LiDAR technology to analyze landscape features around them – and, like his team, could discover something great right under their noses.

Licciardi also hopes the research will be applied to predicting future climate change patterns and rates of ice melting.

“A lot of research we do with glacial geologists — that is often focused on what happened in the past,’’ Licciardi said. However, he said, “It’s our analog to what could happen in the future.’’

Laney Ruckstuhl can be reached at laney.ruckstuhl@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @laneyruckstuhl.