Thank you all.

I get it and I it was the mystery as to why some quakes stop and some quakes take off. It would definitely seem that it has to do with the stress built up.

On the other hand, the amount of time for release clearly has an impact on magnitude (or intensity, to use it colloquially). In other words, I would imagine that movement at a point taking place over a long period of time could have greater gross magnitude (let's say release of power) than one large event. For example, I mean 30 quakes of 3.0M over a period of three years superseding collective gross magnitude a single event of, say, 5.0M.

So, I would imagine that duration of the event is definitely a factor effecting magnitude. This is real fundamental, but in understanding Earth movements, I imagine that tweaking our perception of movement beyond violent shaking certainly causes a rethink of "quakes" and what they are.

Tony