KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 3): Malaysia's RM80 million spent on searching for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has not yielded any clues to the aircraft's whereabouts but has instead contributed to marine science and Western Australia.

West Australian Premier Colin Barnett said on Wednesday the search for the plane had led to unexpected discoveries under the Indian Ocean.

"We're all conscious of the loss of (MH370) somewhere off our coast a little over a year ago," The West Australian newspaper and online news portal WA Today quoted Barnett as saying at the Perth launch of a blueprint for marine science for Western Australia for the next 35 years.

"While that is a great human tragedy, there will be some good come out of it,” he was quoted as saying.

“The knowledge of the deep sea, and the seabed conditions will probably exceed anywhere in the world because of the scientific effort that is searching for an aircraft but providing all sorts of other information."

Some of the discoveries include large ridges and deep trenches and other geographical features.

"For example, previously unknown volcanoes have been discovered," Barnett was quoted as saying in the report.

"Freshwater lakes and freshwater waterfalls have been discovered – features of the marine bed that many did not believe were likely to exist.  And that knowledge largely collected by the Malaysian government will become available."

MH370 vanished on March 8, 2014 with 239 passengers and crew members on board. It is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean about 1,600km from Perth.

On January 29, the government declared that MH370 was lost in an accident, killing all 239 people on board.

Since October, four vessels funded jointly by Malaysia and Australia have searched about half of a 60,000sq km area. The search of this priority area is expected to be completed by May.

Malaysian, Australian and Chinese ministers are slated to meet in Kuala Lumpur in April to consider whether to expand the search.

Malaysia has contributed at least RM80 million so far, matching Australia’s $A30 million bill.

Australia’s bill is a third of the $A89.9 million it set aside in its budget last year for the search.

Last month, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the search may be scaled down.