over the full area of fault rupture and either occur along the fault plane itself or along other faults within the volume affected by the strain associated with the main shock. Typically, aftershocks are found up to a distance equal to the rupture length away from the fault plane.

The pattern of aftershocks helps confirm the size of area that slipped during the main shock. In both the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and the 2008 Sichuan earthquake,