Abstract
The work of John Milne, the centenary of whose death is marked in 2013, has had a large impact in the development in global seismology. On his return from Japan to England in 1895, he established for the first time a global earthquake recording network, centred on his observatory at Shide, Isle of Wight. His composite bulletins, the “Shide Circulars” developed, in the twentieth century, into the world earthquake bulletins of the International Seismological Summary and eventually the International Seismological Centre, which continues to publish the definitive earthquake parameters of world earthquakes on a monthly basis. In fact, seismology has a long tradition in Britain, stretching back to early investigations by members of the Royal Society after 1660. Investigations in Scotland in the early 1840s led to a number of firsts, including the first network of instruments, the first seismic bulletin, and indeed, the first use of the word “seismometer”, from which words like “seismology” are a back-formation. This paper will present a chronological survey of the development of seismology in the British Isles, from the first written observations of local earthquakes in the seventh century, and the first theoretical writing on earthquakes in the twelfth century, up to the monitoring of earthquakes in Britain in the present day.
Highlights
At Oxford, the intensity was only 3 European Macroseismic Scale (EMS), where it was felt by the mathematician John Wallis (Fig. 2), who noticed “some kind of odd shaking or heaving” in his study (Wallis 1666), which he took at first to be due to the passage of carts or coaches nearby
A further anonymous work, the author of which it has not been possible to trace, is a work issued by the publisher James Roberts, entitled “A dissertation upon earthquakes, their causes and consequences; Comprehending an explanation of the nature and composition of subterraneous vapours, their amazing force, and the manner in which they operate; the sentiments, on this head, of the most learned philosophers ancient and modern; the different kinds of earthquakes, distinguished by their Effects; a copious Collection of authentick Relations digested under those titles, the greater part of which have happened in Great Britain
He conjectures that “an intermediate point of convulsive energy exists in or about the latitude of Lisbon”, in support of which he notes that the noise preceding the shock resembles that observed in Portuguese earthquakes, and that a minor earthquake was felt in Malaga one or two days prior to the 9 November quake
Summary
The story of writings on earthquakes in Britain starts, perhaps surprisingly, in Iona (Fig. 1). This small island off the west of Scotland is today only reachable by two ferry crossings; a car ferry to Mull and a passenger-only ferry to Iona itself. As Professor William Kirk, an inspirational figure to Irish geographers, used to remind undergraduates, ideas of centrality depend on where you put the spokes. Ireland and the west of Scotland may seem today like the extreme periphery of Europe, but there was a period when they were the intellectual hub of Europe, a centre of learning, and the base from which Christian missionaries were dispatched to turn back the tide of paganism across the continent (see, for instance, MacCulloch 2010)
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