New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

---

An oceanographic survey of the Tasman Front

B. R. STANTON*

New Zealand Oceanographic Institute Department of Scientific and Industrial Research P.O. Box 12-346 Wellington North, New Zealand

Abstract Results of a detailed expendable bathythermograph survey in the northern Tasman Sea are presented. The Tasman Front, with its origin in the edge of an East Australian Current eddy, extended throughout the survey region. The front marked a coherent, meandering, zonal jet which crosses the Tasman Sea and hence links at least part of the East Australian Current to the other western boundary currents in the subtropical gyre. The frontal meandering derives from both the variability of the East Australian Current system and the topographic effects of the major ridge systems in the north Tasman Sea. The front is less distinct over the crests of these ridges. The flow field in the survey area contained a number of anticyclonic eddies, and current records show that the oceanic eddies are long-lived features similar to the eddies in the East Australian Current.

Keywords Tasman Front; East Australian Current; Tasman Sea; eddies; bathythermograph surveys.

New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1981, Vol. 15 : 289-297 Received 16 April 1981

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (761K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

---

This year's abstracts | Journal home page | All abstracts | Publishing home page