Tara expedition

It was part of the international DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic Modelling and Observing Capabilities for Long-term Environmental Studies) program.

[6] It was able to collect more than 35,000 planktonic samples from 210 stations in every major oceanic region, which through analyses revealed more than 40 million genes, most of which were new to science.

One of the other goals of Tara Oceans was to allow open access archives of both raw and validated data sets to scientists around the world as quickly as possible.

As part of the expedition's public outreach efforts, a short series of documentary videos called The Plankton Chronicles which merged science and art was created by the Villefranche-sur-Mer Marine Station.

It traversed the entire Mediterranean Sea with the goal better understanding the sources, transport, distribution and characteristics of surface floating plastic.

Sampling devices and working areas on-board SV Tara are shown from the vessel's [a] side-view, [b] bird's-eye-view of the deck, and [c] inside-view. They consist of the [1] Continuous Surface Sampling System [CSSS]; [2] Rosette Vertical Sampling System [RVSS]; [3] wet lab and storage in liquid nitrogen; [4] High Volume Peristaltic pump [HVP-PUMP]; [5] dry lab; [6] oceanography engineers data acquisition and processing area; [7] winch; [8] video imaging area; [9] storage areas at room temperature; [10] storage areas at +4 °C and −20 °C; [11] MilliQ water system and AC-s system; [12] diving equipment, flowcytobot and ALPHA instruments; and [13] storage boxes. The flow of seawater from the continuous surface sampling system to the dry lab is shown in blue. [ 1 ]
Courtesy of the Tara Oceans Expedition
Schooner Tara in Brest Harbour.
Sampling route of the Tara Oceans Expedition (green track), showing station labels and areas (blue shade) where the annual mean oxygen concentration is <2 mL/L (WOA09), usually corresponding also to high CO2 concentration and low pH. [ 1 ]