Goofs

As the ground is splitting, it travels in a northerly direction. The water fills behind it. From the character's (and camera's) point of view toward the end, this is right to left, which means they should be on the island (right is south). The last time they show the characters, they "zoom out" to show them on the mainland.

The location of the newly formed island in the end changes location in between the computer simulation that the president is watching and the closing scene, when the camera zooms out.

A 10.5 earthquake as represented in the movie, would actually be much larger than depicted. People would not be able to walk around so freely as they are doing (at a 10.5, the levels of sight and sound would be distorted). Damage would also be total, damaging much more than shown (the destruction would also reach areas as far away as Michigan or possibly even New York).

The San Andreas fault is incapable of suffering an earthquake measuring 10.5 on the Richter scale (100 times as strong as the largest earthquake ever recorded). The Richter scale measures strength as a function of fault length, and the fault in question is far too short to generate such a massive jolt (which would be felt all over the world).

When Dr. Jordan Fisher is in the helicopter reporting water temperature changes at Lake Mead, he is giving figures over a hundred (indicating degrees Fahrenheit). Scientists, however, generally use the Celsius scale in which water boils at 100 degrees and cannot get hotter and remain liquid except under pressure. Furthermore, the lake surface is shown as already boiling, which, on the Fahrenheit scale, occurs at 212 degrees, not at the 95 - 107 degrees reported in the dialogue. It's wrong in either scale.

A 10.5 earthquake would cause massive tsunamis, something that is not depicted in the movie.

The San Andreas Fault meets land around the Colorado River Delta in Mexico, not Venice, California.

On the opening shot of City Hall in San Francisco, it is a spiraling aerial shot with all of the automobiles going in a forward motion. When the scene in "City Hall" is over and the spiraling aerial view is run again, it is the SAME aerial view of city hall run in reverse (as can be proven with the fact that all the cars passing long the street are running backwards in the reverse motion).

When the Seattle Space Needle Tower leans over and falls down on the stunt biker, he should've known better and bike away from the falling danger rather than try to escape in it's path which would've saved him from the building collapse.

At around 1hr 17min on the second 'episode' of the movie during the 10.5 quake, when a tower falls on Dr. Fisher and he is climbing out of the pit, crew can be seen on the far right shaking the tower.

The Space Needle falls towards the side with the steps leading up to the base, which is the north side. It falls along a street in between brick buildings. The Space Needle actually has a football stadium, roller coaster, and an opera house to the direct north of it.

Barstow, California is about 110 miles inland from the Pacific. It is not in the San Fernando Valley as depicted.

When Dr. Samantha Hill and FEMA Director Roy Nolan are placing the warheads at the six sites for detonation, the computer screen identifying the geographical location of the Washington State warhead actually has the Washington State warhead being placed and detonated in Oregon.

In the opening scene with the stunt biker, we see him riding his bike during the earthquake. When the Seattle space needle tower leans over and collapses on his way to trying to escape it, it's implied that he got crushed by the Seattle space needle tower, it's unknown if he survived the crash or not as we never hear from him again.

When the second earthquake crack swallows up the train tracks along with the train, the train is buried in the cracks with people on board, it's unknown if the passengers survived the train crash or not or if the rescue team even sent rescue helicopters with the rescue workers to save them or not as we never hear from them again.

In the news broadcast regarding martial law, martial is spelled "Marshal".