Bathymetry of the Western Margin of Western Australia

Geoscience Australia provided bathymetric data to support the underwater search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. Survey vessels spent months scanning the sea floor with multibeam sonar to gather detailed, high-resolution data, revealing many seabed features for the first time. The data was last updated on 2026-06-04.

Use Cases

• Modeling underwater terrain for safe navigation based on high-resolution bathymetric data
• Analyzing seabed features for geological research based on newly revealed sonar data
• Planning underwater search operations based on detailed sea floor maps

Strengths

• Data was gathered over months of survey work, suggesting thorough coverage
• Multibeam sonar was used, which likely provides high-resolution depth measurements

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Multibeam sonar surveys conducted by bathymetry survey vessels

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 08:14:31.227038

Geography

Southern Indian Ocean, specifically the search area for MH370