Geological Insights from the Search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370

Updated: 2017-07-27

A rich trove of marine geophysical data acquired in the search for missing flight MH370 is yielding knowledge of ocean floor processes at a level of detail rare in the deep ocean. The tragic disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on 8 March 2014 has led to a deep ocean search effort of unprecedented scale and detail. Between June 2014 and June 2016, state-of-the-art shipboard multibeam echosounder (MBES) and sub-bottom profile data were collected in a ~255,000 km2 zone of the southeastern Indian Ocean. The arcuate, NE-SW oriented search swath (75 to 160 km wide) centers on Broken Ridge and extends ~2500 km from the eastern flank of Batavia Seamount to the Geelvinck Fracture Zone (Figure 1). Aircraft debris found along the shores of the western Indian Ocean is consistent with drift modelling that indicates an origin in the search area (https://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370/). The resultant dataset constitutes the largest MBES mapping effort for the Indian Ocean, representing about half the size of California, improving spatial resolution of the ocean floor in this region from an average of >5 km2 to <0.1 km2. Importantly, the new data provide the geospatial framework for the current phase of the search – deployment of deep-water, high-resolution acoustic and optical imaging instruments able to identify aircraft wreckage. <b>Citation:</b> Picard, K.,Brooke, B., and Coffin, M. F. (2017), Geological insights from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search, <i>Eos</i>, 98, https://doi.org/10.1029/2017EO069015. Published on 06 March 2017.