(NewsNation) — A Russian volcano in the Pacific “Ring of Fire” has erupted for the first time in 600 years after an 8.8 Richter scale earthquake.
The earthquake also set off a chain of several other volcanoes erupting in the region.
According to National Geographic, the Ring of Fire is a string of volcanoes and sites of seismic activity, like earthquakes, around the edges of the Pacific Ocean. About 90% of all earthquakes happen along it, and it is dotted with 75% of all active volcanoes on Earth.
It is horseshoe-shaped and has a string of 452 volcanoes that stretches from the southern tip of South America, up along the coast of North America, across the Bering Strait, down through Japan and into New Zealand. Several active and dormant volcanoes in Antarctica “close” the ring.
Some of the world’s most devastating natural disasters have happened along the ring, including Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011 and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
The Ring of Fire is formed by boundaries between the Pacific Plate, the largest of the plates that make up the Earth’s crust, and smaller neighboring ones. Most of the boundaries are made up of subduction zones, where one plate is being forced under the other, which produces some of the biggest and most hazardous earthquakes, Michael Blanpied of the U.S. Geological Survey told The New York Times.
Given the shared risk across nations in the Ring of Fire, scientists have teamed up and shared earthquake data, models and strategies to better prepare the public and inform policy decisions.