Originally Posted by Hyperveloce
For the small dispersion of the debris on the seabed, the SHOM (Navy Hydrographic Services) produced during the 1st phase of the sea searches a 3D map of the currents in the area of interest, some slices (currents as a function of depth or currents 1000m-deep) are visible in
http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol....hom.050609.pdf
Thanks, I had not seen that data. It more or less confirms 0.5m/s at the surface and 100m (different directions??), perhaps averaging to something less than 0.2m/s for the first 200-300m, and less than 0.1m/s deep (or at least down to 1000m, where the direction is shown opposite to that at the surface). If one were to use these higher numbers, that would just make more dispersion, but I think the current drops as you go deeper, so the end result would be the same order of magnitude that I came up with, and that matches what everyone else is saying for the main debris. My interest was in the likely larger patch of smaller debris.