[1][2] Masaaki Kimura graduated in science at the Faculty of Fisheries of the University of Tokyo (1963) and obtained a Doctorate in marine geology (1968).
He has worked for the University of Tokyo's Ocean Research Institute, the Geological Survey of Japan, the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan, and Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory.
[1] He has since retired from that University and is now general director of Marine Science and Culture Heritage Research Association.
He has extensively researched the formation of the Okinawa Trough, and claimed to have predicted the volcanic eruptions in Miyake Island (1983), Izu Ōshima (1986), and Mount Unzen (1991).
[citation needed] Apart from his geological research, Kimura is best known to the world for his exploration of underwater structures which he claims are ruins of an ancient civilization.