The Ring of Fire is a string of volcanoes and sites ofseismic activity, or earthquakes, around the edges of
the Pacific Ocean. Roughly 90% of all earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire, and the ring is dotted
with 75% of all active volcanoes on
Earth.
The Ring of Fire isn’t
quite a circular ring. It is shaped more like a 40,000-kilometer (25,000-mile) horseshoe. A string of 452 volcanoes 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, however, “close” the ring.