Given the progression from Chile, I would think Kamchatka, the Aleutians or Alaska would be more likely event locations. The weird thing about this hypothesis is that it matches a supposedly official report by a Russian Scientific Academy that was prepared for Putin. It predicted a mega quake in the next forthnight along the west coast of the Americas.Since the hypothesis involved some mumbo jumbo about electro magnetic readings in the athmosphere it was mocked by many here on R yesterday, including me. But this Fox interview puts it in a new light.
From a plate tectonics view, the North American Plate is moving west, due to the mid-Atlantic ridge which is always growing and splitting, the west gets pushed west, and so on. The South American Plate is moving north and west. The mid-Atlantic ridge is must further eastward than the one in the North Atlantic. The African plate is moving due north, into Europe. The Pacific plate is moving west because both the North and South American plates are pushing it in from the east. Japan is on the western edge of this, as is New Zealand. The eastern edge of the Pacific plate includes southwestern California and the Aleutians, but not the coast of southeast Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington, Oregon and northern California, all of which are still part of the North American plate. The Ring of Fire is basically all the edges of the Pacific plate. It seems the other plates are all moving into it.
Anyway, if stress on the Pacific plate was relieved by Chile, New Zealand and now Japan, why should there be another major rupture? And if there is, why shouldn't it happen in Japan again? Perhaps that's still the weakest location on the entire plate.
I just don't see how it "has to be" another location, as if earthquakes have to be fair and spread their power around. I would think that as long as there is tremendous pressure on the plates, the relief would occur where the forces arrayed against the pressure are weakest.
Anyway, obviously I'm not a geologist.