Sandwich Earthquakes in Scotia, mmmmm

We have had a swarm of earthquakes near the Sandwich Islands along the Scotia subduction zone, an oceanic subduction zone. Here is the USGS web page for this earthquake.
Here is a map showing the regional tectonic setting with relative plate motion arrows.


Here is a map that shows the global tectonic setting.


There were a number of large earthquakes along the transform plate boundaries in the last year or so, west of today’s earthquake swarm.

This shows the slab contours in this region.


This shows the historic earthquakes in this region.


This map shows an interpretation of the regional tectonics from here.


Also, here is a short explanation (from the USGS) of the graphical solutions for focal mechanisms. While moment tensors (shown in my interpretation figure above) and focal mechanisms are determined differently, their graphic representation of the deformation from earthquakes is the same.

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