I keep an eye on the quake patterns off the West Coast because I live in L.A. There is a theory now that the San Andreas and the Cascadia zone could be linked.
Just recently, in the last week or so, there have been two fairly large undersea quakes on the southern Cascadia fault zone. That struck me as a little unusual, because I've been watching these things for a while and don't recall that activity there.
However, you know how this stuff goes. It's got a lot of random unpredictability to it. So you can't get worked up by a couple of small events. The main thing is to be prepared in case the Cascadia fault zone does rupture. The impact along the coast of Oregon and northern CA will be big. And the chances of a subsequent rupture on the San Andreas would be increased.
Pete2
Maybe I have a simplistic understanding of tectonics, but don't the North American and Pacific plates grind against each other up and down the west coast, with a large area to the north pushing under North America creating volcanoes in the north and earthquakes everywhere?
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