more specific on fault maps and plate boundaries problems on this Nova: the plate boundary near the Red Sea, which should be down the middle of the Red Sea, was onshore; they put the plate boundary right across the main island of Japan, the put the San Andreas fault in the wrong places: right on the coast at Monterey Bay; running off the wrong way SE of Salton Sea, the Juan de Fuca plagte offshore Cascadia just looked bizarre. They put some fault NNW-SSE across Haiti that I doubt very much exists.

They mixed up forecasting and prediction.

They were either wrong or deceptive about explaining the earthquake early warning system in California: some guy I had not heard of was saying it was the difference in P and S waves that allow earthquake early warning. While such systems may exist, it is the difference between P wave velocity (say, 8 km/s) and the speed of light that could give a minute's early warning for Los Angeles from a quake starting on the San Andreas near Salton Sea and rupturing towards the northwest. A system could show that enough rupture had already occured from local networks that, at the speed of light (plus a few seconds for the computer programs?), a warning can be sent. It would take another minute or 2 for the earthquake to complete its rupture and the P, then S waves to arrive in Los Angeles. So, yes, it would use P waves, and the more damaging waves are the S waves, but it is the speed of light that gives more warning. They did mention this later.

Tom Jordan and Eric Calais and the English geophysicist did a good job, but I think they will be a little embarassed when they see this. I know Calais was embarassed when he was on an earlier show on the Haiti quake, and that was dar better.

Chris