A piece of barnacle-encrusted plane debris washed up on Reunion, a French island located 600 miles east of Madagascar, offering possible clues on the fate of Malaysia Airlines' flight MH370 which disappeared a year ago with 239 crew members and passengers.

Malaysia revealed that the piece of debris, sized at 6.5 to 8 feet, is a flaperon, a part of the wing of a Boeing 777, the same type of model as that of the missing aircraft. French investigators are in the process of examining the debris and are expected to identify whether or not the piece came from MH370. To facilitate the process, scientists have suggested analyzing the barnacles that have been found to be clinging on the debris, which have been identified as stalk or goose barnacles.

MH370 was believed to have crashed in the southern portion of the Indian Ocean, around 2,300 miles away from the island of Reunion. Using a technique for studying movement in whales, ecologists can determine where a barnacle has been, examining the shells for clues on how they were formed. This would reveal information about the chemical composition and the temperature of the water a barnacle has passed, which will aid in revealing its origin.

Based on size and growth rates, scientists can also determine the age of the barnacles on the piece of debris. If they are older than when MH370 disappeared, then that would rule out the debris as coming from the missing aircraft.

Aside from age, the barnacles can also tell how the piece of debris has been moving through the water. If they are confined to the sides of the flaperon, then the wing part was submerged. If the barnacles are mostly located on the debris' surface, this means that the flaperon moved along the surface of the ocean.

Barnacles have been used before to study shipwrecks but this is believed to be the first instance that they will be utilized to provide clues about an aircraft. At the same time, investigators will also be checking for the presence of other organisms like shellfish, coralline red algae and tube worms as these may also offer information about flight MH370.

However, information from the barnacles will only narrow down the search area for MH370 within tens of kilometers at best, not the aircraft's exact location.

Photo: Don Whitaker | Flickr