A spatiotemporal mining framework is a novel tool for the analysis of marine association patterns using multiple remote sensing images. From data pretreatment, to algorithm design, to association rule mining and pattern visualization, this paper outlines a spatiotemporal mining framework for abnormal association patterns in marine environments, including pixel-based and object-based mining models. Within this framework, some key issues are also addressed. In the data pretreatment phase, we propose an algorithm for extracting abnormal objects or pixels over marine surfaces, and construct a mining transaction table with object-based and pixel-based strategies. In the mining algorithm phase, a recursion method to construct a direct association pattern tree is addressed with an asymmetric mutual information table, and a recursive mining algorithm to find frequent items. In the knowledge visualization phase, a "Dimension-Attributes" visualization framework is used to display spatiotemporal association patterns. Finally, spatiotemporal association patterns for marine environmental parameters in the Pacific Ocean are identified, and the results prove the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed mining framework. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.