What is the Ring of Fire?

The Ring of Fire is a belt of trenches, volcanic arcs and earthquake zones that almost encircles the Pacific Ocean. It runs from the southern Andes north to Alaska, west across the Aleutians, south through Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia, and on to Tonga and New Zealand. Nearly all of it follows subduction zones.

Why does the Ring of Fire have so many earthquakes and volcanoes?

Around most of the Pacific, oceanic plates sink beneath neighboring plates. The locked plate contacts produce great megathrust earthquakes, and water released from the sinking slabs melts the mantle above them, feeding chains of volcanoes.

How many volcanoes are on the Ring of Fire?

Counts depend on how a volcano is defined, but it is commonly cited that about 75% of Earth's active and dormant volcanoes lie along the Ring of Fire. In the volcano data behind our map, the five countries with the most volcanoes are the United States, Japan, Russia, Indonesia and Chile, all of which have long stretches of the ring.

Which countries are on the Ring of Fire?

Countries along the ring include Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, the Central American nations, Mexico, the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand.

What was the largest earthquake on the Ring of Fire?

The 1960 Valdivia earthquake in Chile, magnitude 9.5, is the largest earthquake ever recorded. It struck on the boundary where the Nazca Plate sinks beneath the South American Plate and sent a tsunami across the Pacific.

Is the Ring of Fire a single plate boundary?

No. It is a chain of many boundaries between more than a dozen plates, mostly subduction zones. It also has gaps, such as the San Andreas Fault in California, where the plates slide past each other instead of converging.

Ring of Fire Map: Where Earth's Volcanoes and Quakes Cluster

What the Ring of Fire is

The Ring of Fire is not a single fault or a single plate edge. It is a chain of subduction zones, connected by a few transform faults, that runs about three quarters of the way around the Pacific Ocean. On a map of plate boundaries it shows up as an almost continuous orange-red line of convergent boundaries along the Pacific rim.

The ring holds a large share of the planet’s geological activity. It is commonly cited that about 75% of Earth’s active volcanoes sit along it, and that roughly 80-90% of the world’s earthquakes happen there. Exact figures depend on how volcanoes and earthquakes are counted, but no other belt on Earth comes close. The volcano data behind our map agrees: the five countries with the most volcanoes are the United States (165), Japan (116), Russia (104), Indonesia (101) and Chile (90), and every one of them has a long stretch of the ring.

Which plates form the ring

At the center sits the Pacific Plate, the largest plate on Earth. Along its northern and western edges it sinks beneath its neighbors at a series of deep trenches. In the eastern Pacific, smaller oceanic plates born at the East Pacific Rise do the sinking instead: the Nazca Plate, the Cocos Plate, the Rivera Plate and the Juan de Fuca Plate.

The overriding plates form the outer rim. In the Americas they are the South American Plate, the North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate. In Asia and the western Pacific they include the Okhotsk Plate, the Amur Plate, the Philippine Sea Plate, the Sunda Plate, the Australian Plate and a cluster of microplates such as the Tonga Plate and the Kermadec Plate.

Why it has so many big earthquakes and volcanoes

Subduction zones produce the largest earthquakes on Earth. Where one plate dives beneath another, the two are locked together along a huge, gently sloping fault called the megathrust. Strain builds for centuries and is released when hundreds of kilometers of the fault slip at once. Because the Ring of Fire is mostly subduction zones, it has most of the planet’s great earthquakes and many of its tsunamis.

The same sinking slabs feed the volcanoes. As a slab descends, it releases water into the hot mantle above it, and the water lowers the melting point of that rock. Magma rises to build a volcanic arc a little inland of each trench. Arc magma is thick and gassy, so Ring of Fire volcanoes are prone to explosive eruptions, such as Mount St. Helens in 1980 and Pinatubo in 1991.

A tour around the ring

Chile and the Andes

The tour starts in the south-east. Along the coast of Chile and Peru, the Nazca Plate sinks beneath South America at the Peru-Chile Trench. PB2002 puts the average convergence at about 7.8 cm per year along roughly 4,300 km of subduction zone, among the faster rates on the ring. The result is the Andes, a chain of high volcanoes built on the edge of a continent. Chile alone recorded the 1960 Valdivia earthquake (M9.5), the largest ever measured, and the 2010 Maule earthquake (M8.8). Peru had an M8.4 earthquake in 2001. Farther north, the coast of Ecuador and Colombia was hit by an M8.8 earthquake in 1906.

Central America and Mexico

Off Central America, the Cocos Plate sinks beneath North America and the Caribbean Plate at the Middle America Trench, converging with North America at about 6.2 cm per year in PB2002. A line of volcanoes runs through Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In Mexico the Cocos and Rivera plates feed the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt.

California gap and Cascadia

Between Mexico and Oregon the ring has a gap in subduction. Here the Pacific Plate slides past North America along the San Andreas Fault, a transform boundary. Subduction resumes at Cascadia, where the Juan de Fuca Plate sinks beneath the northwestern United States and south-western Canada at about 4.0 cm per year. The Cascade volcanoes, including Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier, stand above it. Cascadia last produced a great earthquake, of about magnitude 9, in the year 1700.

Alaska and the Aleutians

Along southern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, the Pacific Plate sinks beneath the North American Plate at the Aleutian Trench. This arc has an unusual record of great earthquakes: the 1964 Prince William Sound earthquake (M9.2), the 1965 Rat Islands earthquake (M8.7), and M8.6 earthquakes in 1946 and 1957. The 1946 Unimak Island earthquake sent a tsunami that struck Hawaii.

Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands

Across the Bering Sea, the Pacific Plate sinks beneath the Okhotsk Plate at the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench. PB2002 gives about 8.7 cm per year of average convergence along their shared boundary, all of it subduction. Kamchatka has some of the most active volcanoes on Earth, and the region recorded an M9.0 earthquake in 1952 and an M8.8 earthquake in 2025.

Japan

Japan sits at the meeting point of four plates. In PB2002, north-eastern Japan lies mainly on the Okhotsk Plate and south-western Japan on the Amur Plate, although many textbooks simplify these to the North American and Eurasian plates. The Pacific Plate subducts at the Japan Trench, which ruptured in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake (M9.1). The Philippine Sea Plate subducts at the Nankai Trough to the south-west, the source of the 1946 Nankai earthquake (M8.3). Mount Fuji sits near the junction of these plates.

Philippines and Taiwan

South of Japan, the Pacific Plate dives under the Philippine Sea Plate and the small Mariana Plate along the Izu-Bonin and Mariana trenches. The Mariana Trench holds the deepest point in the oceans. On the far side of the Philippine Sea Plate, Taiwan and the Philippines mark where it converges with the plates of mainland Asia: the Yangtze Plate at Taiwan and the Sunda Plate at the Philippines. PB2002 gives about 10 cm per year of average convergence along the Philippine Sea/Sunda boundary. Mindanao had an M8.3 earthquake in 1918, and Taiwan had one in 1920.

Indonesia and New Guinea

In Indonesia, the Australian Plate sinks beneath the Sunda Plate at the Sunda (Java) Trench, at about 5.8 cm per year in PB2002. Krakatau and Tambora lie on this arc. The western part of the arc, off Sumatra, faces the Indian Ocean rather than the Pacific, so some maps end the Ring of Fire in eastern Indonesia and some include Sumatra. Eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are a maze of microplates, including the Banda Sea Plate, the Molucca Sea Plate and the South Bismarck Plate.

Tonga, Kermadec and New Zealand

The ring then turns south-east through the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the Tonga and Kermadec trenches. At the Tonga Trench, the Pacific Plate converges with the Tonga Plate at up to about 26 cm per year, the fastest relative motion anywhere in PB2002. Tonga is the site of the violent Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption of 2022.

The ring ends in New Zealand, which PB2002 splits between the Pacific, Australian and Kermadec plates. The Pacific Plate subducts beneath the North Island, feeding the volcanoes of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, while the Alpine Fault carries the boundary across the South Island as a transform fault.

The largest earthquakes on the Ring of Fire

Of the nine earthquakes of magnitude 8.7 or larger in our data since 1900, eight struck on the Pacific Ring of Fire:

1960 Valdivia, Chile, M9.5
1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska, M9.2
2011 Tohoku, Japan, M9.1
1952 Kamchatka, Russia, M9.0
1906 Ecuador-Colombia, M8.8
2010 Maule, Chile, M8.8
2025 Kamchatka, Russia, M8.8
1965 Rat Islands, Alaska, M8.7

The ninth was the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake (M9.1), on the Indian Ocean side of the Sunda arc. Explore all of them on the earthquake map, and see the volcano map for the arcs that line the same trenches.

The Pacific Ring of Fire