Click image to enlarge

Tara Oceans is an exceptional 3-year marine expedition managed by Tara Expeditions' team and a scientific consortium, including major international laboratories, led by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). Like the previous expeditions, it sailed under the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).

This program will allow researchers to study previously unknown and crucial marine ecosystems. Eric Karsentym, Research Director for EMBL and CNRS, is leading Tara Oceans as co-director of the voyage. The urgency of understanding and coping with global warming makes this an extraordinarily important voyage to add to earlier understandings of the origins of ocean life so as to better preserve the diversity of its future.

More than 310,000 spectra of particulate absorption and attenuation have been processed from the Tara Ocean cruise. Data can be found here or on SeaBASS.