Reef record suggests impending Sumatra quakes

Evidence of seafloor rise and fall shows southern Sumatra is at start of new earthquake cycle

The magnitude-8.4 and -7.9 quakes that slammed the Mentawai Islands southwest of Sumatra in September 2007 are likely just the first in a series of major temblors that will strike that region in the coming decades, new analyses of the archipelago’s coral reefs suggest.