Quakes above 5.0 between California and Chile

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/

If you look at the uptick of quakes over 5.0 between California and Chile I think you are seeing possibly a growing trend in reaction to the large quake in Japan. If these types of quakes grow in magnitude into 7.0s then we might have enough release of energy that might not harm large populations of people along the west coast from Seattle to Chile. So, these smaller (graduated) earthquakes might be helpful in the long run rather than one big jolt of 7.0 or more like an 8.0 or 9.0 like Japan received.