Okay!
Any idea what's causing California to be so active lately?
My husband said that Californina is moving towards Alaska - at about an inch or so a year. Do you agree with that?
The strip of land west of the San Andreas is in fact slowly moving towards Alaska. However this motion is carried on a variety of faults in addition to the San Andreas, and areas east of the San Andreas all the way to Utah are also moving northwest, though at a much, much slower speed than the sliver of land West of the San Andreas.
This motion can be directly measured year by year by GPS units on either side of the fault, and on either side of the fault the rocks "match up" if you move the west side southwards several hundred miles..indicating they've moved that far.
Depending on the time frame you look at California isn't really all that active; the area where the 7.2 hit is very seismic, had a series of very similar quakes in 1992 and in several other years, and Magnitude 4-5 quakes in Southern California are pretty common; probably just a random fluke you had one of each within a few days
Damned Californians. They first ruined Montana - now Alaska?