The Pacific Ring of Fire is a huge horseshoe-shaped zone that wraps around the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand up through Japan and across to South America. It’s only about 40,000 kilometres of coastline, but it’s home to roughly 75 percent of Earth’s volcanoes and 90 percent of its earthquakes.
This isn’t a coincidence. The edges of the Pacific Plate are colliding with several other plates, diving under them or grinding past them. All that friction melts rock, creates volcanoes, and shakes the ground constantly.
Famous Ring of Fire spots include Japan’s Mount Fuji, Indonesia’s Krakatoa, the Cascade volcanoes of the U.S., and the Andes of South America. Around the Ring there’s an earthquake somewhere every minute or two - but most are too tiny for humans to feel.
