TARASOC
Type | Oceanographic cruise |
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Set | This cruise is part of the set TROPICAL DEEP-SEA BENTHOS |
Ship | Alis |
Ship owner | IRD |
Dates | 20/09/2009 - 27/10/2009 |
Chief scientist(s) | BOUCHET Philippe |
DÉPARTEMENT SYSTÉMATIQUE ET EVOLUTION Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle 43, rue Cuvier 75231 PARIS CEDEX 05 |
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DOI | 10.17600/9100040 |
Objective | The ZEPOLYF (Zone Economique de la Polynésie Française) programme discovered in 1996 and mapped an alignment of seamounts stretching over 700 kilometres to the south-west of Tahiti: the Tarava seamount chain. Their age is situated between 35 and 50 million years, i.e. considerably older than the Society Islands which are presently emerged. Many of these seamounts have summital plateaux located between depths of 600 and 900 metres. No biological exploration had taken place until now on this structure, which has no equivalent in the South Pacific. The deep benthos on the slopes of the Society Islands themselves remains largely unknown. Therefore, the TARASOC cruise's objective was to explore the benthic fauna of the two Tarava and Sociéty chains, with three nested objectives: 1) Description of fauna, molecular characterization of species and probable discovery of new species; 2) Looking for correlations between the age and isolation of seamounts/islands, on the one hand and the composition of the benthic fauna and species dispersal strategies on the other hand (endemism and biogeography); 3) Utilization of some species for more targeted studies to find bioactive molecules. The related projects are CenSeam and MarBol. |