Two colossal strike-slip earthquakes that struck off the coast of Sumatra in April have shown the formation of a new plate boundary and triggered an extraordinary number of large aftershocks around the globe.

At magnitudes 8.7 and 8.2, the April 11 earthquakes in the Northeastern Indian Ocean were largest of their kind in recorded history.

The quakes show strong evidence that the Indo-Australian tectonic plate is separating and creating a new plate boundary, according to researchers who published a detailed analysis of this unique event in three papers in the journal Nature.

[link to www.cosmosmagazine.com]