Hi everybody, I am Jamie & I am a graduate in Geology from the UK. Over the next week I want to discuss and share stuff to do with earthquakes across the world. Before I start tweeting on any topics though I thought I spent a few tweets introducing myself 1/n
First of all, my personal Twitter account is over at @UKEQ_Bulletin - a lot of information on what I have been doing over the past four years can be found there. I intend this short introduction to summarise that information & also expand on my own story 2/n
When I was very young I was fascinated with dinosaurs & fossils. One of the many family holidays in the UK when I was a child involved staying at the Dinosaur Farm on the Isle of Wight. I loved looking at the dinosaur footprints at Brighstone & finding fossils there 3/n
Despite this early interest in fossils, as well as picking shells and stones from my local beach with my mum (a beach comb is one of the best things to be able to do when you live on the coast!), I never considered going into geology as a job in the future for many years 4/n
From about the age of 8 I was determined I would become a military historian. I have always loved history, particularly Ancient Rome & the Mediterranean World, and I always thought that I would endeavour to have a career in that broad world of history academia 5/n
I was also a keen writer after I began at secondary school (in the UK that is at the age of 11/12). I wrote fantasy and science fiction stories & was sure that, if being a historian wasn't possible, I could become a author instead 6/n
Then in February 2010 we had a family holiday in New Zealand. This was my first long-haul flight & my first real holiday abroad. My family already had friends who lived in Christchurch & it was there that we spent our first week based 7/n
New Zealand is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Even staying in a city of half a million like Christchurch, it is possible to travel for half an hour in any direction & find beautiful landscapes. The beauty of the land greatly affected me 8/n
These are three locations visited in my first week there. The first is the view of Christchurch from the Summit Road in the Port Hills, south of the city. The second is Lyttelton Harbour, also south of the city. The third is the Otira Viaduct, north of Arthur's Pass 9/n 
The physical beauty of the country is matched by the generosity & heart of it's population. What struck me most was how the people of Christchurch & beyond were so kind & generous to those who visited their country & to their fellow citizens 10/n
One of our late family friends was in her eighties, but was still able to drive. One day whilst we were staying in Christchurch she turned up at the accommodation we were staying in to give somebody else a lift across the city. The selflessness of that spoke volumes to me 11/n
The second (& final) week of our holiday was spent touring the southern half of New Zealand's South Island. The countryside varied wildly, from the flat plains of Canterbury, the rolling hills of the Catlins, the mountains to the lakes & fjords of the Fiordland 12/n
Along this roadtrip we discovered three geological sights. The first is the Moeraki Boulders in Otago Province, located about 60km north of Dunedin. These calcareous concretions have fallen out of the rapidly eroding cliff and formed a set of peculiar boulders on the beach 13/n
The next day we visited Curio Bay (64km east of Invercargill), where a giant petrified forest can be found at low tide. This 180 million year old forest was inundated by volcanic mud at least four times, creating a quite unique coastal landscape today 14/n
The final geological sight is the largest of them all - the Southern Alps. This mountain range forms the backbone of the South Island & is the result of a complex tectonic history (which I will explore at a later date). Seeing it today, especially from above, is magnificent 15/n
One picture in particular illustrates a component of the process of mountain building perfectly - somewhere in the mountains around Mount Cook and the Tasman Glacier is this synform fold in the rocks which constitute these magnificent peaks 16/n
Another component of the evolution of these mountains is evident in the pictures shared - the lake seen is the Tasman Lake, a glacial lake at the foot of the largest glacier in New Zealand. As with most glaciers in the world it is rapidly retreating 17/n
After my holiday in New Zealand I kept in touch with one of the family friends in Christchurch. I already wanted to move there when I was older & finding out more about NZ was something I wanted to do. Sadly the way I learnt more about NZ was not the way I had envisioned 18/n
On the morning of the 4th September 2010 a moment magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck near the small town of Darfield, 35km west of Christchurch. I heard about that evening & recollect a video of someone saying they were heading up the Port Hills in case of a tsunami 19/n
Earthquakes were something I knew a little about. I had never been taught about it in school - the UK rarely has earthquakes so it is not an important topic to teach here - but I had read a little about Kobe and San Francisco using a late-20th century atlas 20/n
What amazed me was that the initial earthquake had caused widespread damage, particularly in the Canterbury Plains west of Christchurch, but also in the older buildings in the city. Nonetheless, despite the size of the earthquake, there had been no fatalities 21/n
One building which had paid the price was the Lyttelton Timeball Station. This 19th century building had a ball which fell at a certain time so mariners could check that their chronometers on their ships were correctly calibrated. It had been being renovated in February 2010 22/n
The shocks continued over the next few months & we heard about the damage from our family friend. We heard how a dog they were looking after was spooked by an aftershock & ran out into the road. We heard how the aftershocks were taking a toll on people's mental health 23/n
It was this event which began my fascination with earthquakes. I wanted to know what had caused this quake, why it had happened in Christchurch (I knew that Lyttelton & Akaroa Harbours were ancient extinct volcanoes) and I wanted to know what could happen in the future 24/n
Then at 12:51pm on the 22nd February 2011 the unthinkable happened. A magnitude 6.2 quake struck directly beneath the city, devastating the cities buildings & killing 185 people. The buildings I had seen a year before, including the Cathedral & Arts Centre, were ruins 25/n
The quake had such an impact on me that I decided to do a presentation to my school year about the quake. I think that the presentation went fairly well; the only issue was the day that I made my presentation happened to be the 11th March 2011... 26/n
Having both the Christchurch Earthquake and Japan Earthquake & Tsunami occur within 3 weeks of one another probably decided my fate: I had to find out more about why these events occurred, and what if anything could be done to stop them, or else mitigate the hazard they pose 27/n
I chose my college on the basis of a Geology A-level (that limited me to two in the county). After I completed college, I went through the university clearing process (I did not gain the necessary grades for the unis I had applied to) and studied with @EarthSciPlymUni 28/n
Throughout the years since the Christchurch quakes I have continued to learn as much as I can about earthquakes. This did involve pestering @geonet with emails at times (sorry @DisastrousComms for all those emails back then), creating records of quakes & reading what I could 29/n
My main project though is the United Kingdom Earthquake Bulletin (@UKEQ_Bulletin). I began this at the start of my degree & have kept it going ever since. The blog side has been badly neglected - finding time between studies, looking up quakes & tweeting has been a challenge 30/n
Originally I envisioned it as a way to share information to the public about UK seismicity, but when I realised that UK seismicity is far rarer than I already thought it was, I began to turn to international seismicity as the focus of the project 31/n
Today it is an account sharing information on quakes which I find interesting, but focuses more on NZ seismicity, as would probably be expected considering how it all began. It has enabled me to learn a lot about quakes from research & seismologists all over the world 32/n
I'll wrap up for the moment, but my last tweet here will be to give a shout out to the many seismologists here on Twitter. Many of them work at unis or for hazard agencies (USGS, EMSC, GeoNet, etc.); when looking for earthquake information, it is them you should look to 33/n
(cont): @RLacassin @SotisValkan @timblor @KateClarkEqGeo @COrchiston @GeoGinger @wbohon @LukeWedmore @timwright_leeds @Yu__Morishita @IRIS_EPO @geonet @LastQuake @geoscope_ipgp - apologies if I have forgotten anybody - please let me know if I have! 35/35
