Thread:Comments:7.0 magnitude earthquake strikes off Japanese coast/2 Pacific earthquakes?

Ok, so Friday Japan has an earthquake, Saturday Chile has an earthquake.

I'm wondering why there's no articles pointing this out -- Have any scientists made note of this publicly? Any relation (I can see the plates are not adjacent, but who knows....)? I was briefly looking at the tectonic plates in the Chile article ( http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Pacific_Rim_braces_for_tsunami_following_major_Chilean_earthquake media gallery image 2). The Nazca plate hit the South American plate causing the Chilean earthquake -- the Nazca plate and South American plate BOTH seem to touch on the Carribean plate (note I'm no geologist...) which would probably be what caused the Haiti earthquake. Any relation there? I'm wondering if there's any chance of chain reactions going on with plates bumping into each other "faster" or "harder". They said the Nazca and South American plates are converging 80mm a year (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/8.8_magnitude_earthquake_hits_Chile;_tsunami_warnings_issued_throughout_Pacific_rim). That seems mighty slow to me, but that's probably a lot of momentum for huge heavy plates of bedrock. When they knock into each other, or rub against each other, how much do they affect each others' momentum? Even a little could be a huge deal. Could we measure a change in momentum within just a couple months?

Pure musing and conjecture -- and a little worry. I need a geologist ;)