COMARGIS is the Information System of COMARGE (COntinental MARgin Ecosystems on a worldwide scale), a field project of the Census of Marine Life. The core of the system is a relational database implemented in ORACLE. Additional software help the users uploading, retrieving or updating data in the database. The whole system is derived from Biocean, a database developed and maintained by the Deep-Sea Department and the French Oceanographic Data Centre at Ifremer, Brest.

The MAREL (Mesures Automatisées en Réseau pour l’Environnement Littoral) Carnot system developed and implemented by Ifremer (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the sea) in 2004 is a moored buoy equipped with physico-chemical and biological measuring devices working in continuous and autonomous conditions. The system is located in the Boulogne-sur-Mer harbor (eastern English Channel) influenced both by marine coastal and fresh waters. The measuring station is equipped with high performance systems for seawater analysis and near real time data transmission.

Gathering together researchers of various disciplines and from diverse institutes located along the Channel (several IFREMER laboratories, several French universities, English laboratories, universities and NGO), the IBTS cruises on board the RV Thalassa aims at sampling the entire English Channel (EC) and part of the North Sea (NS) ecosystems: hydrology, planktonic compartments including fish eggs and larvae, benthic invertebrates, pelagic, demersal and benthic fish and cephalopods, marine birds and mammals. To do so, the EC-NS area was sampled by complementary techniques: hydrological probe, Niskin bottle, high frequency measurements systems such as Pocket Ferry Box, LOPC, plankton nets, GOV trawl, pelagic trawl, grab, dredge, ROV for sub-marine video, multibeam echosounders and visual observations.

Gathering together researchers of various disciplines and from diverse institutes located along the Channel (several IFREMER laboratories, several French universities, English laboratories, universities and NGO), the CAMANOC 2014 cruise on board the RV Thalassa aims at sampling the entire English Channel (EC) ecosystem: hydrology, planktonic compartments including fish eggs and larvae, benthic invertebrates, pelagic, demersal and benthic fish and cephalopods, marine birds and mammals. To do so, the EC area was sampled by complementary techniques: hydrological probe, Niskin bottle, high frequency measurements systems such as Pocket Ferry Box, LOPC, plankton nets, GOV trawl, pelagic trawl, grab, dredge, ROV for sub-marine video, multibeam echosounders and visual observations.

PROMESS 1 is the first attempt to realise scientific drilling on continental shelves and slopes in the Mediterranean Sea. It is designed for sampling long sections (50-300 m) and realise in situ measurements of shelf and upper slope sedimentary sequences deposited during the last 500 kyr, at 50-300 m water depth. It will provide clues on sea-level changes, slope stability, canyon history and climate variability in physiographic settings with high sedimentation (glacial and interglacial prodeltas) and exceptional preservation of depositional sequences. Through PANGAEA, absolute and relative abundance data on planktic and benthic foraminifera in hole PRAD1-2 have been made publicly available.

Noorvegian margin datasets (Vicking and ARK) were part of the Hermes project. The objective was to provide an comprehensive and integrative study of the faunal communities of the different habitats of the Haakon Mosby Mud Volcano and a first description of communities of the Storrega pockmarks. This study was combined with microbial (MPI) and chemical (MPI, Ifremer) characterisation of the same habitats.

<p>REPHY is a French Observation and Monitoring program for Phytoplankton and Hydrology.</p>