GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Sixty percent of all active volcanoes occur at the boundaries between tectonic plates. Most volcanoes are found along a belt, called the “Ring of Fire” that encircles the Pacific Ocean.

Detailed explanation-2: -Destructive, or convergent, plate boundaries are where the tectonic plates are moving towards each other. Volcanoes form here in two settings where either oceanic plate descends below another oceanic plate or an oceanic plate descends below a continental plate.

Detailed explanation-3: -Most of the world’s volcanoes are found around the edges of tectonic plates, both on land and in the oceans. On land, volcanoes form when one tectonic plate moves under another. Usually a thin, heavy oceanic plate subducts, or moves under, a thicker continental plate.

Detailed explanation-4: -Volcanism occurs at convergent boundaries (subduction zones) and at divergent boundaries (mid-ocean ridges, continental rifts), but not commonly at transform boundaries.

Detailed explanation-5: -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 much of the Ring of Fire, plates overlap at convergent boundaries called subduction zones. That is, the plate that is underneath is pushed down, or subducted, by the plate above.