Why in the news?

Taiwan was struck by its most powerful earthquake in at least 25 years.
Its susceptibility to earthquakes is attributed to its location along the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where a majority of the world’s seismic activity occurs.
Taiwan is primarily influenced by the collision of the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate.

What is the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’?

The Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ or Pacific Rim, or the Circum-Pacific Belt, is an area along the Pacific Ocean that is characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.
Volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin form the so-called Ring of Fire.
It is home to about 75 per cent of the world’s volcanoes – more than 450 volcanoes.
Also, about 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur here.

Its length is over 40,000 kilometres and traces from New Zealand clockwise in an almost circular arc covering Tonga, Kermadec Islands, Indonesia.
It is moving up to the Philippines, Japan, and stretching eastward to the Aleutian Islands, then southward along the western coast of North America and South America.

The area is along several tectonic plates including the Pacific plate, Philippine Plate, Juan de Fuca plate, Cocos plate, Nazca plate, and North American plate.
The movement of these plates or tectonic activity makes the area witness abundant earthquakes and tsunamis every year.
Along much of the Ring, tectonic plates move towards each other creating subduction zones.
One plate gets pushed down or is subducted by the other plate.
This is a very slow process – a movement of just one or two inches per year.
As this subduction happens, rocks melt, become magma and move to Earth’s surface and cause volcanic activity.

2020: Discuss the geophysical characteristics of Circum-Pacific Zone.