Magnitude 7.5 Quake, Northern Indonesia

Indonesia is the world's most earthquake-prone nation, but even there a 7.5 is pretty large. It was a shallow subduction-related thrust event just north of Sulawesi island's northern Minahasa Peninsula, at 1:02 a.m. Monday local time, Sunday in most of the rest of the world. So far just one death has been reported. See details at the US Geological Survey's special page for this event.

Sulawesi (or Celebes) is a starfish-shaped island in a tectonic snarl of plate interactions. The Minahasa Peninsula is distinctive in that it has earthquakes at every level from the surface down to 600 kilometers, thanks to two separate subduction zones at different depths.