Tara Arctic The polar schooner
Tara set out to drift in the ice for approximately two years from its first departure, late in August 2006. The expedition met with interest in the
oceanography community, especially in the context of the
International Polar Year (2007–2008). Dubbed
Tara Arctic, this voyage ended on February 23, 2008. It was part of the international DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic Modelling and Observing Capabilities for Long-term Environmental Studies) program.
Tara Oceans In 2009,
Tara started a new expedition, dubbed
Tara Oceans. It travelled around the world until 2013 to study CO2 capture by
marine microorganisms such as
plankton on a global scale. The costs of the expedition were €3 million per year, all from private funds. The expedition was primarily funded by the French fashion designer
agnès b., however, it was a collaborative effort between the Tara Expeditions Foundation, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and 17 other international partner institutions. 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. The samples were analyzed using a combination of DNA sequencing and microscopy. Of the 40+ million genes identified, the two biggest match domains were 58.8% bacteria and 5.4% viruses. 27.7% were not able to be matched with any currently known domains of life. This fact underscores the vast unknown biological components of the world's oceans. In addition to uncovering unknown marine biodiversity, the
Tara Oceans Expedition helped us to understand the role of marine microbes in the global ecosystem, address the impacts of climate change on marine life and improve ocean conservation efforts. 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.
Tara Mediterranean Tara Mediterranean was the next expedition that took place over seven months in 2014. It traversed the entire Mediterranean Sea with the goal better understanding the sources, transport, distribution and characteristics of surface floating plastic. One of the major discoveries was that of the 2000 samples taken on the cruise at 300 different sites, all of the samples contained plastic fragments.
Tara Pacific Tara Pacific began in May 2016. During this latest voyage
Tara studied
coral reefs and
plastic pollution.
'''Tara Microbiomes''' Between 2020 and 2023,
Tara traveled the South Atlantic, along the coasts of South America and West Africa, and as far as Antarctica, to study the ocean microbiome and its interactions with the climate and pollution. The Microbiome Mission has been endorsed by the
UNESCO Oceanographic Commission for contributing to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. == See also ==