New Seafloor Map Could Help Flight 370 Search

Flight 370 seafloor map — Seafloor topography in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search area. Dashed lines approximate the search zone for sonar pings from flight data recorders, or black boxes. The black circle is the first reported sonar contact on the east flank of Batavia Plateau (B). The next reported sonar contact (red circle) is on the north flank of Zenith Plateau (Z). The shallowest point in the area (S) is an estimated depth of 1 mile (1.6 kilometers). The deepest point (D) is an estimated depth of 4.9 miles (7.9 km). The Wallaby Plateau (W) lies to the east of the Zenith Plateau.

(Image credit: Walter H.F. Smith and Karen M. Marks)

The deep-sea search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 could get a boost from a new, more detailed map of the seafloor west of Australia.

The missing plane left Kuala Lumpur International Airport on a scheduled flight to Beijing on March 8 and is believed to have crashed in the southeast Indian Ocean after veering off course and running out of fuel. Surface searches have turned up no conclusive signs of debris. Ocean floor mapping is underway and could take months to complete, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a May 26 statement. [Facts About Flight 370: Passengers, Crew & Aircraft]

Becky Oskin covers Earth science, climate change and space, as well as general science topics. Becky was a science reporter at Live Science and The Pasadena Star-News; she has freelanced for New Scientist and the American Institute of Physics. She earned a master's degree in geology from Caltech, a bachelor's degree from Washington State University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz.