There was a geomagnetic storm on Frebruary 15th it takes twelve days for the plasmoid to move between the entry point and the Nazca tectonic plate's westerly edge.
![Image](http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/plots/kp/20100216_kp.gif)
As you can see that fault line is simply an extension of the San Andreas fault that runs into the southern hemisphere and down off the coast of Chile. When the left edge of the plate moves right edge moves too.
![Image](http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/tectonic.gif)
As you can see there was plenty of plasma leaking in on the 15th to create a large plasmoid.
Same thing happened last year with a large plasmoid rolling over the mid-Atlantic ridge fault affecting Italy. There was a geomagnetic storm on March 13, 2009 and it takes approx 26 days to reach the mid Atlantic ridge fault and the quake occurred April 6, 2009. Follow the fault line affecting Italy back to the mid-Atlantic ridge.
Geomagnetic data is here;
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/warehou ... 09_DGD.txt
Tom