M5 earthquakes have been occurring today on either side of Baja Peninsula-a couple on the Plate Boundary in the Gulf of California, and more interesting to me, a couple west of Baja. Until a couple of years ago, it was assumed by most that there was not plate motion west of Baja anymore, and estimate of Pacific-North America Plate motion were based on ocean spreading (and magnetic anomalies) in the southern Gulf of California. (Mark Legg was probably an exception to that view, and has been proved correct). But, recent papers (e.g., Dixon et al) use GPS to show that Baja is moving several mm/yr with respect to the stable Pacific palet (defined by a bunch of GPS from interior Pacific plate-islands). The historical seismicity on the NEIC map shows little near today's quakes. We had proposed to study this outer motion (in far offshore southern California) but were repeatedly rejected and have given up on this...
Chris