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It is working with Geoscience Australia on the bathymetric survey, which involves obtaining measurements of the depth of the ocean and is equivalent to mapping topography on land. So far, 41,300 sq kilometres of the search area have been analyzed and mapped, revealing contours, depths and hardness of the ocean floor.

The work is expected to take 12 months to complete.

What you are doing is flying a piece of equipment very close to the sea floor and if you don’t know what is there in the first place, you end up driving into a mountain

While the maps are too coarse to find any actual wreckage from the plane, they do provide the first detailed look at this part of the ocean floor.

They are also vital for the next stage of the search – when two or three deep-sea search vehicles examine the seabed for debris. The equipment is pulled along just above the sea floor by a six-mile long armoured cable and scientists need to know if they are likely to encounter mountains and valleys.

“Before you can do the next level of detailed search, you need to know what is there,” Boxall said.

“What you are doing is flying a piece of equipment very close to the sea floor and if you don’t know what is there in the first place, you end up driving into a mountain. Not only does this mean you end up writing off a million pounds worth of equipment, you also put the people on the ship in great risk because someone driving several tons worth of kit into the sea floor causes huge strain on the cable.

“It means they now have enough information to search safely.”

The images are coloured to show depth, which ranges from 2.5 km m to 5.3 km.

Boxall said it was this depth, and the difficulties of using equipment at these depths, which meant that much of the world’s oceans were still unknown. Almost 72% of the planet is covered in water yet the majority of it has never been mapped.