

It contains more than half of the free water on. This type of boundary generates a large number of earthquakes as tension in Earth’s crust builds up and is released. The Pacific Ocean covers around one third of Earths surface, making it the largest ocean in the world. This stretch of the Ring of Fire is a transform boundary, where plates move sideways past one another. The Pacific Ocean covers about a third of the Earth’s surface at 165 million square kilometers. A significant exception is the border between the Pacific and North American Plates. The abundance of magma so near to Earth’s surface gives rise to conditions ripe for volcanic activity. It is larger than all Earths land combined, holds half of our worlds water, and hides the. As rock is subducted, it melts and becomes magma. The Pacific Ocean covers one third of the Earths surface. That is, the plate that is underneath is pushed down, or subducted, by the plate above. The ocean is a huge body of saltwater that covers about 71 percent of Earth’s surface. Bottom trawls can contact the ocean floor. Bottom trawls are primarily used to catch Pacific ocean perch, although pelagic trawls are also used. The glint of the Sun reflected from smooth water is near the center. Along much of the Ring of Fire, plates overlap at convergent boundaries called subduction zones. In 2021, commercial landings of Pacific ocean perch totaled 138 million pounds and were valued at more than 20 million, according to the NOAA Fisheries commercial fishing landings database. The Pacific Ocean covers virtually all of the visible disk of the Earth in this picture. The abundance of volcanoes and earthquakes along the Ring of Fire is caused by the amount of movement of tectonic plates in the area. Ninety percent of Earth’s earthquakes occur along its path, including the planet’s most violent and dramatic seismic events. Seventy-five percent of Earth’s volcanoes-more than 450 volcanoes-are located along the Ring of Fire. It traces boundaries between several tectonic plates-including the Pacific, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Indian-Australian, Nazca, North American, and Philippine Plates. Its length is approximately 40,000 kilometers (24,900 miles). The circumglobal mixing of water in the southern and, to a much more limited extent, northern polar reaches of the Pacific permits the intermingling of flora and fauna from other oceanic regions, while temperate and tropical surface waters of the Pacific are more likely to have indigenous biotas. The Ring of Fire, also referred to as the Circum-Pacific Belt, is a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.
