Sunday, October 25, 2009

ring of fire


Tao-Rusyr Caldera, Onekotan Island, Kuril Islands
from the EarthObservatory (satelite pictures from NASA)


Kuril Islands, Eastern Russia are part of the Ring of Fire:

Alaska's frigid and remote Aleutian island chain, the towering Andes mountains of South America, and the tropical islands of Micronesia would seem to have little in common. In fact, these diverse areas are all part of the most volcanically and seismically active region on Earth, an area known as the "Ring of Fire." Three-fourths of Earth's active and dormant volcanoes - including Mount St. Helens, Washington - lie along this arc, at the margins of the Pacific Ocean, where the large Pacific plate and other tectonic plates dive beneath yet other plates.

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