[John H K]

I'd be cautious about drawing conclusions based on staring at real-time earthquake maps a lot....

The reality is there's ALWAYS more activity than people realize, but when people that don't normally spend a lot of time looking at the maps suddenly start doing so, it SEEMS like there's a lot of activity, when it's actually more or less normal.

And the human mind is trained to see patterns, even when none exists, so any lines or directions or anything that SEEM apparent don't necessarily have any real meaning.

And a 6.5 such as the San Simeon one is ALWAYS going to generate a lot of aftershocks, possibly lasting for months.

[RightWhale]

Sitting in Alaska we get to see a fair amount of earthquake activity, such as the 7.5 last spring. Maybe we are just well-instrumented. The 6.5 in Cal was the start of a LOT of shaking by comparison.