The Inland region was jolted again Wednesday morning after a magnitude-3.4 quake struck near the city of Lake Elsinore.

It was followed a few hours later by a magnitude-2.6 rumble in the same location.

But those and other recent earthquakes that have rattled Southern California don't signify that "the Big One" is coming, seismic analysts say.

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Wednesday's largest quake occurred at 8:16 a.m., eight miles north of Lake Elsinore and 11 miles south of Corona, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The tremor was actually an aftershock stemming from a magnitude-4.7 earthquake that hit near the same area Sunday morning.

Several other quakes were reported nearby including a magnitude-4.0 temblor that hit La Jolla on Tuesday and a magnitude-3.6 quake last week near the Salton Sea. Several microquakes were also recorded near Idyllwild and Anza over the past few days.

Seismologists have a general rule about the number of quakes and their magnitudes, California Institute of Technology seismologist Kate Hutton said.

"You get 10 times the quakes for each point," Hutton said. "So you can expect 10 times more (magnitude-4.0 earthquakes) than (magnitude-5.0 earthquakes). Ten times more threes than fours and so on."

The recent spate of seismic activity is normal, added Caltech seismic analyst Anthony Guarino.

"It not any indication of what's to come," Guarino said. "There's no definitive proof or evidence that any of these are related."

The Inland region is cut by several fault lines. Among them is the San Jacinto Fault, running through San Jacinto and Riverside, and the Elsinore Fault, which traverses Julian, Temecula and Lake Elsinore.

The well-known San Andreas Fault runs through Indio and Redlands before heading up the California coastline.

Southern California generally sees at least one major earthquake of magnitude 6.0 or greater every few years, but activity has slowed since the last major quake in the Hector Mine area in 1999.

"It's hard to say we're due, but it has been unusually slow," Guarino said.

"With all of these large faults in that region, you can't say when a major earthquake will happen. It could happen tomorrow."

Staff writer David Raclin contributed to this report.

Reach John Asbury at 951-368-9288 or jasbury@PE.com