The Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU) is comprised of 51 academic societies from the research field of earth and planetary science with 13,000 individual members. It held its 30th anniversary meeting in conjunction with the American Geophysical Union, resulting in the world’s first virtual international academic meeting with thousands of participants. In future, even at onsite venues, it is expected that the format for academic meetings will be changed by partly including online presentations, etc.

As a result of globalization, the nature of infectious diseases has changed from being simply a public health problem to a now global threat, with impacts on a wide range of sectors, including the economy and security. The U.S., formerly a leader in cooperation on health issues, is now in conflict with China and adopting a non-cooperative stance, but there are still avenues left to Europe, Japan, and other cooperating countries to address the problem of ending the virus and equitably distributing the vaccine.

It has been thirty years since the Kochi Prefecture Deep Sea Water Laboratory, Japan’s first on-land water collection facility was established. Along looking back over the use of the facility in the study of marine products, marine life, and chemistry and the subsequent expansion of its focus, this article also introduces recent research and future prospects.