Plankton from the Pacific Ocean Leg – Tahiti/Hawaii/C.Rouvière/LOVillefranche/CNRS/UPMC/Tara Oceans

provides information every 4 cm as the device gets lowered hundreds of meters below the surface. It can distinguish between the objects it encounters and has a very fine mesh netting that can gather the tiniest of specimens. Biologist Christian Sardet takes a look at many of the collected organisms under microscopes in his onboard lab, but the bulk of the analysis takes place in a German research facility, where shipments from Tara arrive every six weeks.
     The cost of transporting the collected samples over the course of the trip has amounted by itself to 2 million euros, and Dr. Karsenti suggests that an additional 10 to 20 million euros will be needed to consider the data once the journey has reached its end. Mainly for financial reasons, the boat was rerouted last year and was unable to make planned stops in East Asia. It’s possible that these or other destinations might be reached on a future expedition, though plans are only tentative for now.
     So far, the project has been lucky to have the monetary support of the French fashion designer Agnès b, whose son has sailed aboard the Oceans as its operations manager. Agnès is the owner of the boat, which interestingly was once owned by Jacques Cousteau and later served as the New Zealand yachtsman and environmentalist Peter Blake’s vessel on the Amazonian study mission that ended with his murder at the hands of pirates. Thankfully, that gruesome incident did not end the schooner’s legacy in the service of marine study.
     While no future voyages are definite for the Tara Oceans as of now, investigations of microscopic life in the world’s oceans are being managed by other groups of researchers. Earlier this month, a Russian drilling team reached a sub-glacial lake beneath 2.3 miles of Antarctic ice in a search of unique life forms. At the same time, the Tara Foundation’s efforts to create new models for the distribution of plankton communities throughout the