ExploraGyre is a future-oriented and challenging project led by 5 students from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (National Institute of Applied Sciences) of Lyon, France, and one from the ensimag of Grenoble, France. Our background in Biology, Ecology, Physics and Informatics is essential for environmental questions, and particularly the plastic ocean pollution. Every year and for a long time, 12.7 billions of tons of plastics are poured in the ocean [1]. At the end of the last century, we discovered an alarming plastic continent in the Pacific ocean. Now, it is up to the North Atlantic ocean to reveal its own plastic continent. « Plastic continent » does not reflect the real challenge: it is not a localized but a global phenomenon [2], it is not stable but a moving mass with a poorly known dynamic [3], it is not disconnected from the marine ecosystems but, on the contrary, closely linked to it [4]. The reality is more blurred: a large broth of plastics, more or less compacted depending on the currents. In the North Atlantic ocean, this gyre concentrates huge quantities of plastics in its center [5].

The stakes of this environmental crisis are enormous: indeed, it is coupled to the world biosphere crisis already present [6] and the overexploitation of oceans [7]. Altogether, they lead to social [8] and public health [9] issues. We are aware of all this and willing to act in order to leave a better world to our children. Our project is centered on biological questions because we think that understanding the way marine biosphere reacts to plastic pollution is essential to predict and anticipate the future changes.

Our expedition is undertaken with a strong motivation, a true scientific rigor and a real will to make a difference. We don’t want assess the state of a marine world and think that it is already too late but we want to face the environmental issue and bring solutions to act against it.