Geologists described the largest intraplate earthquake

Scientists have published details of the largest intraplate earthquake off Sumatra April 11, 2012.
Dvestati devoted to his analysis, appeared in the journal Nature, their summary results ScienceNow.
Powerful shifts took place in several stages in a variety of faults. Along the first fault lithospheric plates moved 37 yards in just 50 seconds. Immediately after the start of a sequence of movement in the other three faults. Long crack 100-200 kilometers shifted relative to each other at a distance of 21 meters around the region. Cracks in this penetrated to the depth of slabs - up to 50 kilometers.
Faults that have experienced shifts are Vortonovskoy basin. It is located approximately midway between the western and eastern parts of the Indo-Australian lithospheric plate. If Western faces directly with the Eurasian plate, causing it to slow motion, Eastern freely "dives" under the Pacific plate. In sum, this leads to a slow tearing plate in half, and the observed earthquakes are just a consequence of this process.
The energy of the earthquake near Sumatra is a thousand times greater than the average seismic energy in the last century of observation. Scientists have found that the epicenter was located 330 kilometers from the place where the geological shifts occurred in 2004. They, according to geologists, seismic activity in the wake Vortonovskoy hollow, and this activity will eventually increase.
The earthquake, which occurred on April 11 off the coast of Sumatra, had a magnitude of 8.7 and was followed by aftershocks of 8.2 points. Immediately after the discovery of the seismic activity in the region was declared a threat to the tsunami, which was never realized. Intraplate earthquake, despite its record-setting power, generated a wave height of only 20 centimeters. This is explained by a horizontal, rather than vertical direction changes during these earthquakes.