. >> o'brien: lynn sykes, a columbia university geologist, has spent years arguing that the indian point plant is not fully prepared for earthquakes. two seismic fault zones intersect one mile north of the plant. so the ramapo fault, which you discovered... where's indian point? >> indian point is right here. >> o'brien: right on the fault. when they were designing indian point, this was unknown. >> this was unknown. the original design for indian point one barely mentions earthquakes except to say that this region is quiet compared to alaska and california and japan, which is true. >> o'brien: if they were designing the plant today, says sykes, the nrc would certainly take into account the newly discovered seismic data. let's start with the earthquake and paint the series of sequences that worry you that could lead to a loss of water and lead to that release of radioactive material. >> right. so one would be if the reactors themselves are damaged by an earthquake that is large enough to crack critical components of that system. >> o'brien: that would be a pretty big quake, wouldn't it?

. >> reporter: lynn sykes, a columbia university geologist, has spent years arguing that the indian point plant is not fully prepared for earthquakes. two seismic fault zones intersect one mile north of the plant. >> where is indian point? >> indian point is right here. >> right on the fault. >> when we were designing indian point this was unknown. >> this was unknown. the original design for indian point barely mentions earthquakes except to say that this region is quiet compared to alaska and california and japan. which is true. >> reporter: if they were designing the plant today, says sykes, the n.r.c.would certainly take into account the newly discovered seismic data. >> let's start with the earthquake and paint the series of sequences that worry you that could lead to a loss of water and lead to that release of radioactive material. >> one would be if the reactors themselves are damaged by an earthquake that is large enough to crack critical components of that system. >> reporter: that would be a pretty big quake, wouldn't it? >> it could be a magnitude 6. if you have an earthquake t