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Australian Exploration Company Believes It May Have Found MH370 Wreckage
First time accepted submitter NapalmV (1934294) writes "Using technology designed to find nuclear warheads and submarines, an Adelaide-based exploration company believes it may have located the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. 'The company, GeoResonance, says its research has identified elements on the ocean floor consistent with material from a plane. Six weeks have now passed since the plane disappeared and extensive searches in the Indian Ocean have failed to locate any wreckage.'"
The pings are relatively hard evidence because nothing else could have made them (except, for the conspiracy theorists among us, a submarine deliberately spoofing the signal emitted by black boxes). Also, they are consistent with the satellite data. Finding chemical elements that are used in the construction of airplanes off the coast of Bangladesh, which is very polluted and in a general area where ships are being scrapped on the beaches? Neither hard evidence nor consistent. Free advertisement for GeoResonance, that's all what this is.
Yes. The next step I'd take is to dip a 37 kHz pinger down to the bottom at a number of locations, measure the received audio signature and build an acoustic model of the area. Then run the actual pinger data back through the model and generate a probability map of where it might be located.
Only problem with this approach: thermoclines change. And we don't have good models for how they do.
Have gnu, will travel.