FINDING two previously unknown volcanoes would normally be cause for celebration by those mapping the sea floor in a remote and little-explored area. But not when the discovery is part of the effort to find the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. The Boeing 777 disappeared early in the morning of March 8th on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 passengers and crew on board. Despite an intense air and sea search of the Indian Ocean to the west of Australia, where the aircraft is believed to have come down, no sign of it has been found.
That may soon change, thanks to a confluence of breakthroughs. New analysis of satellite data has narrowed the area in which the aircraft might have come down from some 600,000 square kilometres to a 60,000 square kilometre strip of ocean, 650km long and 93km wide (see map). A detailed survey of the sea bed in that area has revealed its contours (including the two volcanoes). This “contour mapping” will be used to launch a new and more intensive search with ships pulling through the water sophisticated sonar devices known as “towfish”.
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