A March 31, 2014 file photo of a shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion aircraft is seen on low cloud cover while it searches for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Photo / AAP file
A March 31, 2014 file photo of a shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion aircraft is seen on low cloud cover while it searches for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Photo / AAP file
By Dan McCulloch
The painstaking search for the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has produced a trove of incredibly detailed maps of vast expanses of deep ocean.
Scientists and amateur enthusiasts have been gifted unprecedented mapping of the southern Indian Ocean, which was the site of one of the largestmarine searches ever conducted.
The Boeing 777 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board and its whereabouts is one of the greatest aviation mysteries.
For nearly three years Australia led a multinational search for the aircraft, which was suspended in January until credible new evidence was found.
The search was broken into two phases, the first of which provided a detailed map of the sea floor topography in the area.
The data has revealed in never-before-seen detail underwater volcanoes, enormous ridges and deep fault valleys across 710,000 sq km of remote ocean.
Dr Stuart Minchin, Geoscience Australia's environmental geoscience division chief, said only 10 to 15 per cent of the world's oceans had been surveyed with the kind of technology used in the search for MH370.
"This data is unique both because of the remote location of the search area, and because of the sheer scale of the area surveyed," Minchin said today.
The data - packaged in maps at least 15 times higher resolution than what was previously available - was collected for the sole purpose of locating the aircraft but will be invaluable to the scientific community.
"This data will contribute to a greater understanding of the geology of the deep ocean and the complex processes that occur there," Minchin said.
"It will be important for a range of future scientific research, including oceanographic and habitat modelling."
Data from the second stage of the search, which collected sonar, photographic and video images of particular points of interest, is expected to be released next year.
