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

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