Pacific Business Daily

Why is there just a Pacific Ring of Fire and not ?

An Atlantic, Indian, Caribbean etc Ring of Fire? What makes the Pacific so prone to these calamities, unlike the other oceans? Thank you in advance for your informative answers, it will aide in my research.

Public Comments

1. In the middle of the Atlantic there is a spreading center between two plates. The Pacific is mostly one big plate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Plates_tect2_en.svg
2. There are plate borders, with volcanoes and seismic areas along near all the Pacific Ocean shores. The Atlantic Ocean have the seismic and volcanoes zone in the middle (no a ring). Nor the Indian O and Caribbean S have ring of fire.
3. You need a lot of subduction zones to create a very tectonically active region like the Pacific Ring of Fire.
4. Many of the Asia and Pacific developing countries are situated in the world’s hazard belts and are subject to floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes, windstorms, tidal waves and land slides, etc. The major natural disasters that occur periodically in this region are largely due to climatic and seismic factors. The region has suffered 50 per cent of the world’s major natural disasters. Volcanoes, like earthquakes, are located mainly along the Pacific Rim. The "Ring of Fire", also called the Circum-Pacific belt, is the zone of earthquakes surrounding the Pacific Ocean — about 90% of the world's earthquakes occur there. The next most seismic region (5-6% of earthquakes) is the Alpide belt (extends from Mediterranean region, eastward through Turkey, Iran, and northern India. The Pacific Ring of Fire is an area of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions encircling the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40, 000 km horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes. It is sometimes called the circum-Pacific belt or the circum-Pacific seismic belt. Circling the Pacific Basin, on the bottom of the sea bed, lie a dramatic series of volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches. The zone - the 'Ring of Fire' - notorious for frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions coincides with the edges of one of the world's main tectonic plates. The Ring of Fire is a direct result and consequence of plate tectonics and the movement and collisions of crustal plates.The eastern section of the ring is the result of the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate being subducted beneath the westward moving South American Plate. A portion of the Pacific Plate along with the small Juan de Fuca Plate are being subducted beneath the North American Plate. Along the northern portion the northwestward moving Pacific plate is being subducted beneath the Aleutian Islands arc. Further west the Pacific plate is being subducted along the Kamchatka Peninsula arcs on south past Japan. The southern portion is more complex with a number of smaller tectonic plates in collision with the Pacific plate from the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Bougainville, Tonga, and New Zealand. Indonesia lies between the Ring of Fire along the northeastern islands adjacent to and including New Guinea and the Alpide belt along the south and west from Sumatra, Java, Bali, Flores, and Timor. The motion of the fault generates numerous small earthquakes, at multiple times a day. The majority of earthquakes and calamities occur along the plate boundaries. The Pacific Plate is known as the Pacific Plate of Fire because it is one of the most active plate boundaries where earthquakes as well as eruptions are frequent. T.am, The frequency of Pacific quakes and seismic activity is not coincidence. I hope this will aide your research. I am looking forward to answer more of your very good questions here. This help lots of people too. Thank you T.am. Take care :)