Hi Don,

You probably already know this, but my impression is that Malcolm Johnston at the USGS has documented that creep and earthquakes are indeed related for this stretch of the San Andreas fault. It looks like the stress change from earthquakes can encourage creep, and the stress change from creep can encourage earthquakes.

This one stretch is the only place I know where such shallow creep often is related to earthquakes, and that's
why there are so many creep meters there.

We suspect creep and quakes may be related in a similar way with deeper swarms in many places, but a little creep deep in a fault is difficult to detect. Or there may be other drivers for swarms, like fluid movement or simply elastic triggering.

John