A new seafloor map may be able to help find the missing Malaysian plane.
Two ocean floor topography experts created a new map to show the underwater terrain where Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 allegedly crashed. This map could guide rescuers on specific underwater vehicles to the site of the crash.
Walter H.F. Smith and Karen M. Marks of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry in College Park, Maryland created the seafloor map. The experts are also former and current chairs of the Technical Sub-Committee on Ocean Mapping of the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) – an organization that seeks to provide the most authoritative, publicly available maps of the depths and shapes of the terrain found beneath the sea.
The map showed ridges, plateaus and other underwater terrain characteristics of a large area in the Indian Ocean, where search efforts for the missing plane have been focused since March 8, when the plane disappeared.
The illustration spans a 2,000 kilometer by 1,400 kilometers (1,243 miles by 870 miles) area. The map was made to correspond with acoustic signals from the plane's black boxes in the area during the search mission, and showed the two plateaus where rescuers heard a series of mysterious pings.
Smith and Marks utilized public data from GEBCO and other bathymetric models and data banks to create a map. They also used knowledge from news reports about the missing flight to piece together clues.
Smith made a disclaimer that the map should not be used as a direct guide to the missing plane.
"It is not 'x marks the spot.' We are painting with a very, very broad brush," he said in a press release. He also explained that the search for the missing plane was tough because there was very little knowledge of the seafloor in the specific part of the Indian Ocean being searched.
Further details of the new seafloor map were published in Eos of the American Geophysical Union.
