Looking at the wikipedia map of the different tectonic plates of the world, it looks like the same plate (the India plate) is responsible for both last years Asian quake and yesterday’s devastating one in Kashmir.
The two epicentres seem to have been almost directly (diagonally) opposite each other, both bang on the very edge of the plate itself.
It seems like maybe a big coincidence to get two big quakes on the same plate in such a short period and I was wondering if it was possible that the Kashmir quake was maybe a reaction to the Asian quake - maybe the plate was realigning itself after getting pushed out of position by the first one.
Does this theory have any legs or is it all hokum?
I think it’s all hokum. For the indonesian quake to have triggered the Pakistan event, the strain would have had to travel quickly (~a year) through thousands of miles of rock. If you look at quakes on the San Andreas fault, you see a pattern of different sections, separated by only hundreds of miles, independent of each other, at least in the short term. There’s too much friction, and the plates are too squishy for a rapid transmission of strain from one side of a plate to the other.
Although it would appear there is a connection, and some do hold this as a possibility, the real pattern of connections usually involve opposite ends of the world, so when a quake happens on one side of the earth, there is usually one on the opposite side in same year. So a connection is there, but as another explained, it takes time.
First, the fact that both earthquakes were “bang on the very edge of the plate” isn’t that meaningful. Earthquakes occur near fault lines, and fault lines are far more prevalent near the edges of tectonic plates.
Secondly, and more importantly, the tsunami last year was triggered by a large earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, near the border of the Eurasian Plate and the Australian plate. The Kashmir earthquake was near the border of the Eurasian and the Indian plates. So it wasn’t the same two plates involved in the two events.
Here is the USGS list of recent quakes worldwide, with latitude, longitude, magnitude, and depth.
The site also has a lot of information, that might answer your question.
