Hi EQF. Strain is taken for granted? If you don't know the amount of strain for a given area there isn't a trigger or a combination of triggers that will cause a major quake. The strain has to be there. The plates will lock at a given point and it is only at that point that there is no movement. The plates continue to move in front of, behind, above, below and to the sides of the point that is locked. If this didn't occur there wouldn't be any quakes. If you have just enough strain, or stress for an M>3.0 there isn't a trigger in this world, or out of this world that will cause the quake to be larger.

Without prior knowledge of where there is sufficient amount of strain build up to generate an M>8.0 quake there isn't a trigger that will cause it to be larger. This is why we have so many more small quakes then we do major quakes, because there just isn't that many places along plate boundaries to cause a major quake although there does seem to be some places that are capable of having more then just one or two large quakes in a short period of time.

Without sufficient knowledge of the location of sufficient strain to generate a major quake all of the trigger mechanism isn't going to tell you where the next major quake will occur. Take Care…Don in creepy town