PACIFIC RING OF FIRE

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Context

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in Tonga, which erupted recently, lies along the Pacific ‘Ring of fire’.

Pacific Ring of Fire

Location

It is a region around much of the rim of the Pacific Ocean where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
The Ring of Fire is a horseshoe-shaped belt about 40,000 km (25,000 mi) long and up to about 500 km (310 mi) wide.

Areas included

The Ring of Fire includes the Pacific coasts of South America, North America and Kamchatka, and some islands in the western Pacific Ocean.

Formation

The Ring of Fire is a direct result of plate tectonics: specifically the movement, collision and destruction of lithospheric plates under and around the Pacific Ocean.
The collisions have created a nearly continuous series of subduction zones, where volcanoes are created and earthquakes occur.
Consumption of oceanic lithosphere at these convergent plate boundaries has formed oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, back-arc basins and volcanic belts.
The Ring of Fire is not a single geological structure.

Volcanoes in it

The Ring of Fire contains approximately 850–1,000 volcanoes that have been active during the last 11,700 years (about two-thirds of the world's total).
The four largest volcanic eruptions on Earth in the last 11,700 years occurred at volcanoes in the Ring of Fire.
More than 350 of the Ring of Fire's volcanoes have been active in historical times