Pacific ring of fire

Plate tectonic map of the Pacific region with the Pacific Ring of Fire (red line)

The Pacific ring of fire (also Circumpazifischer Feuergürtel or Circumpazifischer Feuerring ; English: Pacific ring of fire ) is a volcanic belt that surrounds the Pacific Ocean on three sides. At least two thirds of all volcanoes that erupted in the Holocene can be found there. Strong earthquakes also occur more frequently along this ring. These sometimes trigger the tsunamis typical of the Pacific .

description

The Pacific Ring of Fire is not a closed ring. It surrounds the Pacific in an inverted U-shape from the east, north and west over a length of about 40,000 kilometers. It stretches in the east from the southern tip of South America over the Andes and the western edge of Central and North America, including the Cascade Mountains . In the north and west it runs along a series of island arches and continental volcanic arches, starting with the Aleutian Islands, continuing through Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands , the main Japanese and Ryūkyū Islands , as well as the Mariana Islands , the Philippines , New Guinea , the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides to the North Island of New Zealand with the Taupo Volcanic Zone .

causes

The Pacific Ring of Fire is directly related to the subduction zones at the corresponding edges of the Pacific Basin. On these, the Pacific lithospheric plates with oceanic crust ( Pacific plate , Juan de Fuca plate , Cocos plate , Nazca plate ) submerge under several other lithospheric plates with either oceanic or continental crust . At greater depths, the water bound in the crustal rock is released by pressure and heat and lowers the melting point of the rock in the upper mantle ( asthenosphere ), causing it to partially melt. The resulting magma rises, differentiates and creates a typical, mostly explosive volcanism. Tensions that build up in the earth's crust as a result of subduction are discharged in the form of e.g. Sometimes very severe earthquakes.

Lists of East Asian volcanoes :		Lists of American volcanoes :
* List of volcanoes in Russia (only Kamchatka and Kuriles)		* List of volcanoes in the United States # Alaska
* List of volcanoes in Japan		* List of volcanoes in Canada
* List of volcanoes in China		* List of volcanoes in the United States # Washington
* List of volcanoes in the Philippines		* List of volcanoes in the United States # Oregon
* List of volcanoes in Indonesia		* List of volcanoes in the United States # California
Lists of Australian Ocean Volcanoes :		* List of volcanoes in Mexico
* List of volcanoes in Papua New Guinea		* List of volcanoes in Guatemala
* List of volcanoes in the Solomon Islands		* List of volcanoes in El Salvador
* List of volcanoes in Vanuatu		* List of volcanoes # Honduras
* Volcanoes in New Caledonia		* List of volcanoes in Nicaragua
* List of volcanoes # Fiji		* List of volcanoes in Costa Rica
* List of volcanoes # Samoa		* List of volcanoes # Panama
* Volcanoes in American Samoa		* List of volcanoes in Colombia
* List of volcanoes in Tonga		* List of volcanoes in Ecuador mainland
* List of volcanoes in New Zealand		* List of volcanoes in Peru
		* List of volcanoes in Bolivia
		* List of volcanoes in Chile
		* List of volcanoes in Argentina