video Vault
Lectures, interviews and broadcast appearances spanning three decades.
The full-length talks below are recorded in their entirety, followed by footage Dr. Merguerian shot at the World Trade Center excavation in 2008 and three short interviews recorded at Hofstra University in 2005. At the foot of the page are excerpts from the documentary and news broadcasts he has contributed to since 1994, credited to the networks that produced them.
Earthquakes: The Terrifying Truth
ABC World of Discovery · Broadcast May 1994 · Hosted by Martin Sheen. © ABC.
Dr. Merguerian on his early work on the fault history of New York City's water tunnels, the field evidence recovered from them, and what it implies for seismic risk beneath the city.
Out of print. Released on VHS only.
Goshen Stone
ABC News · Broadcast 1 March 2007 · © ABC News.
Dr. Merguerian on the economics of quarrying decorative and building stone, and how such operations pay for themselves.
Naked Science: Birth of America
National Geographic · Broadcast 6 March 2008 · © National Geographic.
Three segments on the glacial history of the New York region — the striae scoured into Central Park bedrock, the coastline the ice left behind, and the meltback that formed the Great Lakes.
DVD available from National Geographic.
Super City: New York
History Channel · Broadcast 22 September 2008 · © A&E Television Networks.
Excavation at the World Trade Center site exposed rock that helped geologists reconstruct the formation of the Appalachian chain — and, further back, the breakup of Pangaea.
Award-winning. DVD available from the History Channel.
How the Earth Was Made: New York
History Channel · Broadcast 10 March 2009 · © A&E Television Networks.
Six segments tracing the bedrock and glacial history of the New York region, from the schist exposed at Inwood Hill Park to the ice that shaped Bear Mountain.
Award-winning. DVD available from the History Channel.
The Dylan Ratigan Show
MSNBC · Broadcast 11 March 2011
Interviewed on the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake in Japan, and what a comparable event would mean for the north-east United States.
The original broadcast page is no longer online.
Tsunami Risk to Long Island
WCBS-TV New York · Broadcast 11 March 2011
Interviewed by Jennifer McLogan in the days after the Tohoku earthquake, on the seismic history of the region and why evacuating Long Island ahead of a tsunami would be close to impossible.