The Indian Ocean search ended in January after covering a lonely stretch of open water where undersea mountains larger than Mount Everest rise and a rift valley dotted with subsea volcanoes runs hundreds of kilometres long. "There are the locations of seamounts which will attract a lot of international deep sea fishermen to the area," Pattiaratchi told Reuters by phone. The data consists of three-dimensional models of undersea landforms as well as raw bathymetric survey information. It was published online by Geoscience Australia on Wednesday, with a further tranche due to be published next year. Australia has not ruled out resuming the search for the Boeing 777 airliner but has said that would depend on finding "credible new evidence" about the plane's whereabouts.

Source: New Strait Times July 19, 2017 04:52 UTC