On Jan 8th, the 4th Annual Meeting for the Sixth Academic Committee of the MGLAB was held in Tongji University. A total of 15 Academic Committee members attended the meeting (13 offline and 2 online), including Academician Wang, Pingxian, Academician Wang, Chengshan, Academician Yang, Wencai, Academician Li, Jiabiao, Academician Jiao, Nianzhi, Academician Guo, Zhengtang, Professor Ding, Kang, Professor Lin, Jian, Professor Zhao, Meixun, Professor Gao, Shu, Professor Yang, Shengxiong, Professor Jian, Zhimin, Professor Zhou, Huaiyang, Professor Zhu, Weilin and Professor Liu Zhifei. Professor Chai, Fei, Director of State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics, Professor Wang, Chunzai, Director of State Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Environment, Mr. Yang Hua, associate director of Dept. of Scientific Research of Tongji University, and over 50 researchers and young scholars form the MGLAB also participated the meeting. Academician Jiao, Nianzhi, associate director of the Academic Committee of the MGLAB, and academician Wang, Chengshan, director of the Academic Committee of the MGLAB, chaired the morning section of the meeting on research progress and the afternoon section of that on MGLAB development, respectively.
Professor Yang, Shouye, director of the MGLAB reported the progresses of the MGLAB in the past five years (especially in 2020), focusing on five aspects: construction of the MGLAB platforms, scientific achievements, team building, cultural and academic exchanges, and future development. The Academic Committee members also listened to the reports about the IODP-China plan by professor Jian, Zhimin, the China National Scientific Seafloor Observation system by professor Zhou, Huaiyang, the research plan of the post-South China Sea Deep by professor Liu Zhifei, the major development of geophysics by professor Geng, Jianhua, and the three-deep science education by Dr. Huang, Wei. In addition, four youth researchers, Drs. Zhou, Xiaoli, Dang, Haowen, Li, Jiangtao and Ma, Zhitu, introduced their latest research achievements to the Academic Committee members.
The Academic Committee members highly recognized the remarkable progresses and achievements made by the MGLAB in 2020, a special year during which almost everything was disturbed by the outbreak of new coronary pneumonia. Over the past several years, MGLAB has been focusing on the two research directions, “low latitude drive of climate evolution” and “geological evolution of the western pacific”, and has made significant progresses in scientific applications of the “three deep” platforms (deep network, deep diving, deep drilling), frontier scientific topics of climate evolution and plate tectonics theory, and serving the national strategic needs of marine oil and gas resources exploration, etc. Nowadays, the MGLAB has generated significantly scientific effects on deep-sea research of the South China Sea, and further enhances the leading role in the field of marine geology in China.