Using a string stretched across the surface of my globe (thereby duplicating closely a "great circle"), I find that the Utah, Nevada and San Fernando quakes are not well-aligned at all. Not sure what kind of projection your source might've been using, Steve.

I you were to look at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/
(global quakes >M4.0 in past 7 days), which is, I think, an equal-area Mollweide projection, you can find MANY examples of 3 quakes larger than the Utah, Nevada, San Fernando sequence which line up better than the latter 3.

Mike W.
93420