He was born at
Ferrol to the ship's captain
José Javier Ezquerra Guirior, a member of the
Navarre nobility from Tudela who died when Joaquín was aged eight when the ship he was commanding exploded at the 1801 siege of
Tarifa. Joaquín's mother was Ana María del Bayo from
Zamora, lady of Lavoa. On his father's death
Charles IV of Spain made Joaquín "knight-page to the king" and he studied for eight years with the
Piarists in
Zaragoza, gaining excellent grades and showing skill in mathematics, natural sciences and French. As an
Afrancesado, in 1810 he left for France with
Joseph Bonaparte's staff, living there until 1822 and associating with the family of the former king's secretary. On his return he entered the
Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos y Canales on 19 June 1821 and was made assistant to the Cuerpo de Caminos y Canales, but
Fernando VII closed the Escuela in 1823. He was exiled for a year, using it to study drawing and painting in the sudio of
Vicente López. He began studying mineralogy and metallurgy, spending five years studying under
Fausto de Elhúyar,
Rafael Amar de la Torre and
Felipe Bauzá from mid 1830 until 1834 in the Royal Academy of Mines in
Freiberg and in the
Austrohungarian Empire. He also produced a travel book in 1847 summarising his travels in Germany, which he illustrated himself and contains technological and scientific observations. In 1833 he was Spain's delegate to the congress of scholars in
Breslau, presenting a paper on the origin of eruptive rocks. He was later inspector general of the Cuerpo de Ingenieros de Minas and professor of mining and applied mechanics at the Cuerpo's Escuela Especial, a chair he held until 1844. After this year he was continuously commissioned in preparing mining and geognostic plans and studies - he wrote Spain's first manual on that topic. He was also a member of various scientific societies (the
Societé Geologique de France, the
Geological Society of London, the Economic Societies of the
Grand Duchy of Baden,
Madrid and
Tudela) and the author of important works, such as industrial studies and an 1847 translation of
Charles Lyell's
Elements of Geology, with additions on Spanish geology. He published numerous works, reports and books on geology in several languages and was also one of the coordinators and directors of the commission to create a geological map of Spain, director of a glass factory in Aranjuez (1826-1827), and assistant professor to Antonio Gutiérrez in the physics chair at the Conservatory of Arts (now the School of Industrial Engineers), a chair he held between 1839 and 1840. In 1837 he became a full member of the
Real Academia de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid. Already a renowned geologist, in 1851 he as commissioned to visit mines in north European countries such as Sweden, Norway and Belgium, later writing another travel book on the trip. By order of the Dirección General de Minas, he edited the maps of the
national mines of Riotinto (1828) and later was given royal orders to design water conduits to Madrid from the rivers
Lozoya and
Guadalix (1829). He was also one of the founder members of the
Real Academia de las Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales in 1847 and the following year Queen
Isabel II of Spain granted him the
encomienda of Charles III and made him a 'Gentilhombre de Cámara' (privy counsellor) with exercise. == Works ==