Manda,

While I personally don't understand all the mechanics to the stress being relieved in quakes, I can tell you that I have learned that micro quakes do very little if anything to relieve stress. If it would take hundreds of magnitude 5 quakes on a given fault segment to relieve the stress that would go in one 7+ quake then I can't imagine how many 1 pointers it would take to do the same.

What I've come to learn also about micro quakes are that they are very, very common in California. There are certain parts of CA where they are more common than others like around Parkfield, Hollistor and parts of the Mojave Desert.

However, in the past 2 years LA has seen very little mirco quakes. I don't know the reason why. So, naturally there has been some interest in the spike of smaller quakes in the area. No, they are doing nothing to relieve stress in the area, but the way they seem to show up in swarms seems to indicate one provokes the other.