The Amelia Earhart Nikumaroro photos, taken during a 1938 aerial survey, went online after a US expedition to the atoll stirred fresh interest in the aviator's disappearance. The full set of 47 images is now available in digital high-resolution format on the museum's website, which had received several requests for them; only low-resolution copies had previously circulated on blogs.

A complete set from a 1938 survey

According to Ric Gillespie, the photographs form a complete set of aerial images shot on 1 December 1938 by an amphibious biplane taking part in a New Zealand survey looking for suitable Pacific airbase locations. The negatives were found more than a decade ago by Matthew O'Sullivan, keeper of photographs at the Christchurch museum.

Why the photos matter to Earhart researchers

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on 2 July 1937 trying to fly round the world at the equator; the search has continued in stops and starts across eight decades. A leading theory holds that the first woman to fly nonstop solo across the Atlantic ran out of fuel and was marooned on Nikumaroro, then known as Gardner Island. That hypothesis rests on signs of a castaway's campsite and artefacts, including glass from a jar thought to have held cosmetic cream, and suggests she survived on rainwater, fish and turtles.

Gillespie, Earhart's most prominent investigator, called the newly released images a "goldmine" in his blog.

The Taraia Object search

This week, archaeologists and scientists from Purdue University in Indianapolis, Earhart's former benefactor, are searching part of the island for the "Taraia Object", an elongated shape in a lagoon, named after the area where it was first noticed in a 2020 satellite image.

• •Gillespie and other longtime Earhart explorers doubt the object is the wreckage of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, saying it is probably a fallen tree.
• •The small atoll has been visited dozens of times before.
• •So far there is no immediate sign of an object in the Taraia area.

Weather slows the expedition

Nikumaroro is part of Kiribati. The expedition said severe weather had hampered its metal-detecting but that it would release an update within 48 hours. Purdue University said that despite Thursday's weather delay the expedition remains on schedule, with two more days of field operations planned and an update expected on the identification of the Taraia Object.

Rick Pettigrew, the expedition lead and executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute, acknowledged the attention the search has drawn and asked for patience: "We understand the tremendous interest in what we're doing at Nikumaroro, and we appreciate everyone's patience. This is a complex scientific process." He said the team must gather the data carefully, analyse it and reach sound conclusions.