I really enjoyed the two episodes of "Hot Rocks: Geology of Civilization" on the Science Channel that I've seen so far. There are at least two more scheduled (one per week, with lots of show times). The show's premise is to describe the impact of geology on humans, sometimes ancient people and sometimes modern people. The host is a very enthusiastic Scottish gentleman who obviously loves this stuff (and his accent can be fairly amusing at times too). The shows I saw were focused on Mediterranean geology, but there is enough going on there to be pretty interesting. For example, he spends a few minutes at a gas station in Turkey that was "remodeled" by an earthquake in 1999: one gas pump is now 15 feet in front of the other gas pump, since each was built on what turned out to be a different tectonic plate. Pretty freaky to see something like that, especially since neither the gas pumps (nor the buildings around them) were destroyed… they just moved all at once. He spends time on the geological principles and has a knack for explaining them… with foodstuffs.
So, get out your TiVo and look for these shows.
Gas tanks
