Seafloor topography in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search area. Dashed lines approximate the search zone for sonar pings emitted by the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder popularly called black boxes.
The first sonar contact (black circle) was reportedly made by a Chinese vessel on the east flank of Batavia Plateau (B), where the shallowest point in the area (S) is at an estimated depth of 1637 meters.
Read: Seafloor Experts Publish New View of Where Missing Jet Might be Located
The next reported sonar contact (red circle) was made by an Australian vessel on the north flank of Zenith Plateau (Z). The deepest point in the area (D) lies in the Wallaby-Zenith Fracture Zone at an estimated depth of 7883 meters. The Wallaby Plateau (W) lies to the east of the Zenith Plateau.
Read: Malaysia Releases Satellite Data on Missing Jet
The shallowest point in the entire area shown here is on Broken Ridge (BR). Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) site 256 is marked by a gray dot. The inset in the top left shows the area’s location to the west of Australia. Seafloor depths are from the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans [2010]. Credit: Walter H.F. Smith and Karen M. Marks