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The Ring of Fire (also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Rim of Fire, the Girdle of Fire or the Circum-Pacific belt) [note 1] is a tectonic belt of volcanoes and earthquakes. It is about 40,000 km (25,000 mi) long [ 1 ] and up to about 500 km (310 mi) wide, [ 2 ] and surrounds most of the Pacific Ocean .
The vast majority of the world's active volcanoes occur along plate boundaries, with the Pacific plate's Ring of Fire being the most active and widely known. Some volcanoes occur in the interiors of plates, and these have been variously attributed to internal plate deformation [15] and to mantle plumes.
The Pacific Ring of Fire runs parallel to the line and is the world's foremost belt of explosive volcanism. The term andesite line predates the geologic understanding of plate tectonics . The term was first used in 1912 by New Zealand geologist Patrick Marshall to describe the distinct structural and volcanologic boundary extending from east of ...
Indo-Australian plate – Major tectonic plate formed by the fusion of the Indian and Australian plates (sometimes considered to be two separate tectonic plates) – 58,900,000 km 2 (22,700,000 sq mi) Australian plate – Major tectonic plate separated from Indo-Australian plate about 3 million years ago – 47,000,000 km 2 (18,000,000 sq mi)
The New Britain subduction zone is one of the most recently formed and most active subduction zones on earth, producing great earthquakes (magnitude 8.1 or greater), with potential for tsunami hazard, and being associated with active volcanism, [3] as part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. [4]
Reports of earthquakes and volcano eruptions along the Ring of Fire might lead some to believe that the level of activity in recent months is above average.
Prominently orogenic belts on the Earth are the circum-Pacific orogenic belt (Pacific Ring of Fire) and Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt. [5] Since these orogenic belts are young orogenic belts, they form large mountain ranges; crustal activity is active and accompanied by volcanic belts and seismic belts.
Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago.