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PACIFIC RING OF FIRE              

22nd January, 2022

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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

 

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/tonga-volcano-eruption-pacific-ring-of-fire-explained-7731351/