Hi Penny,

Speaking as an amateur, I think that you would get no support from the professionals for "stress transfer" being a good candidate explanation for quakes occurring at such widely separated locations. As I mentioned to Chris, I haven't looked closely at the activity (I used http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/ Does anyone have a better source?) but I think a number of those larger quakes are on plates other than the Pacific. And there is no way (I don't think) that static stress can transfer over anywhere near those distances. And the quakes are too small for dynamic stress to be a realistic explanation.

MW
93420