18 Dec Pacific Rinf of Fire (GS-1)
Pacific Rinf of Fire- Today Current Affairs
An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 hit eastern Indonesia whose epicenter was in the Flores Sea, north of East Nusa Tenggara province.
Why do so many earthquakes come to Indonesia?
Indonesia is vulnerable to earthquakes because it’s in the world’s most seismically active region famously called the Ring of Fire, an area where most of the world’s volcanic eruptions occur and it is on the fault lines in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. Though the whole Ring of Fire has seen a large amount of activity in recent days, Indonesia still experiences more due to its position on a large grid of tectonic plates.
There are three major continental plates– the Pacific, the Eurasian and the Indo-Australian plates and one smaller Philippine plate on the confluence of these plates that Indonesia sits on. As a result, a number of volcanoes, earthquakes etc. occur every year. Indonesia is home to more than 400 volcanoes, out of which around 1/3rd are currently active, accounting for about a third of the world’s active volcanoes.
What is the Ring of Fire?
It is the Circum-Pacific Belt only which is referred to as “The Ring of Fire,” is a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. Almost 40,000 kilometers (24,900 miles)is the length of this ring. It marks the boundaries between several tectonic plates including 3 major plates like the Pacific,Indian-Australian, and North American and many smaller ones like Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Nazca, and Philippine Plates.
Seventy-five percent of Earth’s volcanoes, more than 450 volcanoes, are located along the Ring of Fire. Almost 90 percent of Earth’s earthquakes take place along this ring, including the most violent and dramatic earthquakes of this planet.
The abundance of volcanoes and earthquakes along the Ring of Fire is caused by the amount of movement of tectonic plates in the area. Along this Ring of Fire, most of the plates formed convergent boundaries resulting in subduction zones. In this one plate will be pushed down, or subducted, by another plate above. As rocks in the plate get subducted, they melt and become magma. The abundance of magma so near to Earth’s surface as a result of subduction, gives rise to many volcanic activities.
Here is a significant exception to this ring, is the border between the Pacific and North American Plates as these two plates form a transform boundary, in which plates move sideways past one another. These types of transform boundary movements generate a large number of earthquakes as tension in Earth’s crust builds up and is released periodically.
Risk:
The people most at risk from earthquakes and volcanism are people of those countries that lie on so-called subduction zones in the Ring of Fire , like the US west coast, Chile, Japan, Indonesia and island nations including the Solomon Islands etc, as here boundaries mark the collision between two tectonic planets.
Formation of Ring of Fire : The Hindu Analysis
The Ring of Fire is the result of convergent plate movements from subduction of oceanic tectonic plates beneath lighter continental plates and their meeting zone is called a subduction zone.
Why is the Ring of Fire the home to most of the earthquakes?
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The deepest earthquakes took place in subduction zone areas as tectonic plates scrape against each other resulting in tremors and the Ring of Fire has the world’s biggest concentration of subduction zones.
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The tectonic plates were forced to move and crash up against each other because of the energy released from the earth’s molten core, causing friction. The friction only causes a build-up of energy and when this energy is finally released it causes an earthquake. If this happens at sea it can cause devastating tsunamis.
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Tectonic plates usually only move on average a few centimetres each year, but when an earthquake strikes, they speed up massively and can move at several metres per second.
*Earthquake : A sudden violent shaking of the ground, typically causing great destruction, as a result of movements within the lithosphere as a result of plate movements or volcanic action.
The focus of an earthquake is the point inside the earth’s crust at which the seismic waves are initiated and the epicenter is the point directly above the focus on earth’s surface.
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plutus ias daily current affairs 18 December 2021
Plutus IAS Current Affair Team Member
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