What's With All that Shaking in Indonesia?

tags: earthquakes, tsunamis, geology

I carefully follow the news of Indonesia and other places in the South Pacific Ocean because that's where my research birds come from. So I was listening to radio reports of the recent spate of Sumatran earthquakes with great concern, worried that yet another tsunami would result. But as I listened to these reports, I noticed something else that was unusual; the reporters referred to multiple earthquakes occurring in the region, rather than one quake that was preceeded by foreshocks and followed by aftershocks. So of course, I had to ask the resident expert on ScienceBlogs about this, my friend and occasional roommate, Chris Rowan. He wrote a wonderful reply to my many questions, which he quotes in his response.