Natural oil slicks from the Santa Barbara Channel, California, have been imaged using an airborne Fraunhofer Line Discriminator (FLD). The imaged distribution correlates well with aerial photographs, visual observations, and simultaneous television monitoring. However, the areal extent of the surface film mapped by the FLD is larger than that determined by the other methods, suggesting that the FLD is more sensitive to exceptionally thin films. Digital image-enhancement techniques applied to multispectral FLD data may provide general compositional information. The FLD may be useful to explorationists looking for evidence of hydrocarbons in frontier marine areas.

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