How worried do we need to be about a major eruption in the Ring of Fire?
Tokyo — A volcanic eruption in the Philippines forces mass evacuations, while another in Japan kills one person. Across the Pacific, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hits off Alaska. So what’s the link? The spate of activity around the so-called Ring of Fire has raised concerns that a major and potentially deadly volcanic eruption or earthquake could be on the way. The recent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occurred along a belt that runs around the Pacific Ocean and is known as the Ring of Fire. Reaching from Indonesia to the coast of Chile in a 40,000km arc, the belt is home to most of the world’s active and dormant volcanos and is where the vast majority of earthquakes occur. It is an interconnected circle of fault lines — cracks in the Earth’s hardened upper crust — which are under constant pressure from super-hot molten rock beneath. Occasionally the fissures give in and explode, creating volcanic eruptions and causing the land on either side of the fault line to shift and buckle ...
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