Joseph Beete Jukes (10 October 1811 – 29 July 1869), born to John and Sophia Jukes at Summer Hill, Birmingham, England, was a renowned geologist, author of several geological manuals and served as a naturalist on the expeditions of HMS Fly (under the command of Francis Price Blackwood).

[3] He returned to England at the end of 1840, and in 1842 sailed as a naturalist on board the corvette HMS Fly to participate in the surveying and charting expeditions to survey Torres Strait, New Guinea, and the east coast of Australia,[1] under the leadership of Francis Price Blackwood, a naval officer.

[4] Fly visited and charted many locations, circumnavigated Australia twice and visited the island of Java in 1845, as well as conducting an extensive maritime survey based from the south-eastern coast of New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands to the southern edges of the Great Barrier Reef.

Among the more notable things detailed in this volume is the chapter on the Great Barrier Reef; the writings contained therein described as an early classic of Australian geology.

[citation needed] A Sketch of the Physical Structure of Australia … could be considered as Jukes' finest or most important contribution to Australian geology.

[citation needed] Jukes landed in England again in June 1846, and in August received an appointment on the geological survey of Great Britain.

In 1847 he commenced the survey of the South Staffordshire coalfield and continued this work during successive years after the close of field-work in Wales.

The results were published in his Geology of the South Staffordshire Coal-field (1853; 2nd edition 1859), a work remarkable for its accuracy and philosophic treatment.

[1] In 1849, Jukes was offered the post of geological surveyor of the mineral surveying of New South Wales, back in Australia.