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Primary production by phytoplankton and 10 associated parameters were measured at a sampling station off Sydney on the east coast of Australia during September and October 1971. Numerical analysis of the data gave results consistent with local enrichment of the surface waters by vertical mixing of intruded continental slope water with the overlying coastal water, leading to periodic phytoplankton blooms. Simple linear combinations of the parameters were found adequate to describe the variations in the primary production data, and the bloom conditions could be characterized by three separable properties of the sample station.

Landsat data were used to observe variations in ocean colour in the south-western Tasman Sea adjacent to the Australian coast and in Bass Strait. These variations were interpreted as ocean-circulation patterns and these patterns were seen to be consistent with the known behaviour of the water masses in the area. The satellite data were displayed for interpretation as grey-scale and pseudo-colour images of individual bands of the raw data, as false-colour composites of three bands of the raw data, as thematic maps following multispectral classification, and as grey-scale and pseudo-colour images of data corrected for the effects of atmospheric radiance. These images were interpreted visually, appealing to the known characteristics of the satellite sensor and the typical spectra of upwelling ocean radiances.