Pacific Ring of Fire

Many volcanoes form the chain that encircles the Pacific Ocean called the ‘Ring of Fire’ or the Circum Pacific Belt.

The volcanoes of Costa Rica are amongst the more than 452 active-volcanoes forming the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’. This region produces Earth’s greatest number of earthquakes (90%) and volcanic activity (75%).

Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Columbia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, USA, Canada, Russia, Philippines, Tonga, and New Zealand, are all have volcanoes forming part of the Ring.

Costa Rica’s Stratovolcanoes along with others make-up the chain of volcanoes forming the volatile 40,000 km Ring around the horseshoe-shaped basin: where the subduction plates (the Pacific Ocean Tectonic plates) ride under the lighter, converging Continental plates.

Subduction Zones

The tectonic plates are areas on the Earth’s continually shifting lithosphere. The area where the tectonic plates interact, rides over the other, is called a Subduction Zone. The descending plate sinks beneath the crust, giving off very high temperatures which increase the already highly pressured rocks there releasing water. The water reduces the temperature of the molten mass and magma works its way to the crust. It is possible that the magma may discover an existing conduit leading to a volcano that has been dormant for a very long time and before you know it there is a rebirth of anther sleeping Costa Rican volcano.

Where tectonic plates collide with each other and one does not give way to the other, the land mass on the surface is altered and mountains develop- thus the formation of the Himalaya Mountains.

Subduction Fault Zone Diagram

Ring of Fire refer to the moving and colliding plates along the Ring of Fire that Costa Rica volcanos are part of, producing most earthquakes (90%) and volcanic activity (75%).