The next phase of the search for MH370 will use sonar technology

After a four-month pause, the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is again underway.

The New York Times reports that the next phase of the search will use "side-scan sonar, synthetic aperture sonar, multibeam echo sounders and video cameras" in hopes of finding the plane's wreckage in the Indian Ocean. The new phase of the search began on Monday, according to a statement from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

While the first phase of the search used surveillance flights in an attempt to detect ping signals from the plane, the new phase will focus on finding the underwater wreckage with sonar equipment.

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No debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which was traveling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, has yet been found, but officials are "cautiously optimistic" they will find the plane's wreckage, they told The Associated Press. The new phase of the search will use 3D maps, the first produced of the region where the plane is thought to have crashed. The new maps revealed that the water in the search area is home to volcanoes, crevasses, plateaus, and ridges, the Times reports, and the search will be "slow, given the terrain."

"They are searching the area of highest probability," Alec Duncan, a senior lecturer at the Center for Marine Science and Technology at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, told the Times. "And if it is there, they will find it."