The Marion Dufresne provides two main functions, oceanographic research for the French Oceanographic Fleet under the responsibility of Ifremer, and logistics for the French sub-Antarctic islands - Crozet, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam - under the responsibility of the TAAF.
A multifaceted ship
The Marion Dufresne is a multifaceted ship: it is a passenger ship used to transport personnel from the French Subantarctic Lands bases (110 passengers) equipped with a helicopter platform, a cargo ship loading containers and heavy packages with a capacity of 4600 m³ and having two twin 25-ton cranes. But it is also a ship designed for scientific research, equipped with 650 m² of laboratories, which has a winching system for handling heavy machinery and equipment, multibeam sounders and finally a giant Calypso corer.
Studying the Ocean in all its dimensions
When used by the French Oceanographic Fleet, the Marion Dufresne, which bears the name of an 18th century explorer, carries out all the missions of oceanography. It allows biologists, chemists, geophysicists and current specialists to organize campaigns in the Indian Ocean... and everywhere else. Its specificity is recognized internationally in paleoclimatological studies: thanks to its giant Calypso corer which samples layers of sediment up to 6,500 meters deep, the Marion Dufresne is the only ship to collect sediment cores up to 70 meters long. Thanks to these samples, scientists reconstruct the Earth's climate over hundreds of thousands of years.
