Jackson was born and raised in
India, which probably established his interest in all aspects of Asia, which is where much of his current research has been concentrated. He was sent back to boarding school in the UK for his education.[2]
Jackson attended the
University of Cambridge from 1973 graduating with a
1st Class degree in geology in 1976. Then, under the tutelage of
Dan McKenzie at the
Bullard Laboratories,
Cambridge, he received his PhD in 1980. His research was within geophysics and used earthquakes to study the processes that produce the major surface features of the continents, such as mountain belts and
basins. It included field work with seismometers in Iran and with the Seismic Discrimination Group at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[2][3]
Between 1977 and 1981 he was a visiting scientist in the Seismic Discrimination Group at
MIT before returning to Cambridge to take up a
research fellow position in
Queens' College, Cambridge, where he became Assistant
Dean in 1983. In 1984, he was appointed as an assistant lecturer in the
Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge, lecturer in 1988 and
reader in 1996. He was made Professor of Active Tectonics in the Department of Earth Sciences in 2003.[4]
Communicating about the implications of his research for resilience against earthquakes, and about geophysics and earthquakes, to both societies at large and organisations has been an important part of his work. In 1995 he gave the televised
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. In 2023 he was a guest on the
BBC Radio 4 programme
The Life Scientific.[3]
Current research
Using evidence from earthquakes,
remote sensing,
geodesy and
geomorphology he is able to observe, quantitatively, the
geometry and rates of deformation processes while they are active.[1] In addition to
seismology, his current research uses space-based remote sensing (including
radarinterferometry,
GPS measurements and optical imagery) combined with observations of the landscape in the field, to study the evolution and deformation of the continents on all scales, from the movement of individual
faults in earthquakes to the evolution of mountain belts.[2]
Much of his work is carried out in collaboration with researchers from the COMET Project[5] where he is associate director.
Selected publications
Jackson, J.A. 1982, "Seismicity, normal faulting, and the geomorphological development of the Gulf of Corinth ( Greece): the Corinth earthquakes of February and March 1981.", Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 377–397.
McKenzie, D. & Jackson, J. 1983, "The relationship between strain rates, crustal thickening, palaeomagnetism, finite strain and fault movements within a deforming zone.", Earth & Planetary Science Letters, vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 182–202.
Jackson, J. & McKenzie, D. 1984, "Active tectonics of the Alpine- Himalayan Belt between western Turkey and Pakistan.", Geophysical Journal – Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 185–264.
Jackson, J. & McKenzie, D. 1988, "The relationship between plate motions and seismic moment tensors, and the rates of active deformation in the Mediterranean and Middle East", Geophysical Journal – Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 93, no. 1, pp. 45–73.
Ambraseys, N.N. & Jackson, J.A. 1990, "Seismicity and associated strain of central Greece between 1890 and 1988",
Geophysical Journal International, vol. 101, no. 3, pp. 663–708.
Taymaz, T., Jackson, J. & McKenzie, D. 1991, "Active tectonics of the north and central Aegean Sea", Geophysical Journal International, vol. 106, no. 2, pp. 433–490.
Jackson, J., Norris, R. & Youngson, J. 1996, "The structural evolution of active fault and fold systems in central Otago, New Zealand: Evidence revealed by drainage patterns", Journal of Structural Geology, vol. 18, no. 2–3, pp. 217–234.
Ambraseys, N.N. & Jackson, J.A. 1998, "Faulting associated with historical and recent earthquakes in the Eastern Mediterranean region",
Geophysical Journal International, vol. 133, no. 2, pp. 390–406.
Maggi, A., Jackson, J.A., McKenzie, D. & Priestley, K. 2000, "Earthquake focal depths, effective elastic thickness, and the strength of the continental
lithosphere", Geology, vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 495–498.
Jackson, J. 2002, "Strength of the continental lithosphere: Time to abandon the jelly sandwich?", GSA Today, vol. 12, no. 9, pp. 4–10.