If like me you settled down to watch the new BBC documentary 'How the Earth Made Us' on Tuesday, you'll have found a great program that does as good a job as can be hoped of making the non-living elemental parts of our world exciting and interesting. The first episode was on rocks, geology, faults, etc. and will be followed up with water, fire and air. I'm looking forward to them already.
I'm also glad to see that the BBC didn't pull the programme from the schedules entirely, since it covered earthquakes. The recent disaster in Haiti could have made an 'isn't geology exciting' programme such as this come across as very poor taste. Instead they handled it fairly sensitively, updating that portion with mention of Haiti and sticking to the facts and the devastation caused down the ages. If anything it makes for particularly pertinent television and explored the question (if only briefly and somewhat naively) of why so much of mankind knowingly lives in jeopardy on top of natural fault lines.
This BBC news article on the incredible Naica crystal cave shows a snippet of the first episode.
