Southern Indian Ocean Seafloor Backscatter Data at 30m Resolution

Backscatter data for seafloor topography was collected by Geoscience Australia to support the search for missing flight MH370. The dataset covers over 710,000 square kilometres in the Southern Indian Ocean, acquired via hull-mounted multibeam sonar from June 2014 to February 2017. It provides a 30-meter resolution map of the search and transit areas.

Use Cases

• Analyze seafloor texture and composition based on backscatter intensity values.
• Map underwater topography and geological features for the Southern Indian Ocean region.
• Support research on marine geology and sediment distribution in deep ocean basins.
• Train or validate models for automated seafloor classification from sonar data.

Strengths

• Covers a large area of over 710,000 square kilometres.
• Provides high-resolution seafloor data at 30 meters.
• Data collection spanned nearly three years from June 2014 to February 2017.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Acquired by multibeam sonar mounted on the hull of multiple vessels (GA survey references: GA-4421, GA-4422, GA-4430).

Time Range

June 2014 to February 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 15:42:57.442935; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Southern Indian Ocean, specifically the MH370 search area and transit lines.