Ring of Fire in the context of "Aleutian Arc"

The American Cordillera (/ˌkɔːrdəlˈjɛrə/ KOR-dəl-YERR-ə) is a chain of mountain ranges (cordilleras), consisting of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the western "backbone" of the Americas. Aconcagua is the highest peak of the chain. It is also the backbone of the volcanic arc that forms the eastern half of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

North Asia or Northern Asia (Russian: Северная Азия) is the northern region of Asia, which is defined in geographical terms and consists of three federal districts of Russia: Ural, Siberian, and the Far Eastern. North Asia is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to its north; by Eastern Europe to its west; by Central Asia and East Asia to its south; and by the Pacific Ocean and Northern America to its east. It covers an area of 13,100,000 square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), or 8.8% of Earth's total land area; and is the largest subregion of Asia by area, occupying approx. 29.4% of Asia's land area, but is also the least populated, with a population of around 37 million, accounting for merely 0.74% of Asia's population.

Topographically, the region is dominated by the Eurasian Plate, except for its eastern part, which lies on the North American, Amurian, and Okhotsk Plates. It is divided by three major plains: the West Siberian Plain, Central Siberian Plateau, and Verhoyansk-Chukotka collision zone. The Uralian orogeny in the west raised Ural Mountains, the informal boundary between Asia and Europe. Tectonic and volcanic activities are frequently occurred in the eastern part of the region as part of the Ring of Fire, evidenced by the formation of island arcs such as the Kuril Islands and ultra-prominent peaks such as Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Kronotsky, and Koryaksky. The central part of North Asia is a large igneous province called the Siberian Traps, formed by a massive eruption which occurred 250 million years ago. The formation of the traps coincided with the Permian–Triassic extinction event.

Southeast Asia is the geographical southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of mainland Australia, which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of the Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. Timor-Leste and the southern portion of Indonesia are the parts of Southeast Asia that lie south of the equator.

The region lies near the intersection of geological plates, with both heavy seismic and volcanic activities. The Sunda plate is the main plate of the region, featuring almost all Southeast Asian countries except Myanmar, northern Thailand, northern Laos, northern Vietnam, and northern Luzon of the Philippines, while the Sunda plate only includes western Indonesia to as far east as the Indonesian province of Bali. The mountain ranges in Myanmar, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lesser Sunda Islands, and Timor are part of the Alpide belt, while the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia as well as Timor-Leste are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Both seismic belts meet in Indonesia, causing the region to have relatively high occurrences of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, particularly in the Philippines and Indonesia.

The Kamchatka Peninsula (Russian: полуостров Камчатка, romanized: poluostrov Kamchatka, pronounced [pəlʊˈostrəf kɐmˈt͡ɕætkə]) is a 1,250-kilometre-long (777 mi) peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about 270,000 km (100,000 sq mi). The Sea of Okhotsk bounds the peninsula's western coastline, immediately offshore of the peninsula and below the Bering Sea runs the 9,600-metre-deep (31,496 ft) Kuril–Kamchatka Trench. Its eastern coastline is the Bering Sea, part of the Pacific Ocean.

The Kamchatka Peninsula, the Commander Islands, and Karaginsky Island constitute Kamchatka Krai of the Russian Federation. The majority of the 322,079 inhabitants are ethnic Russians, with about 13,000 being Koryaks (2014). More than half of the population lives in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (179,526 in 2010) and nearby Yelizovo (38,980). The Kamchatka Peninsula contains the volcanoes of Kamchatka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that form part of the Ring of Fire.

A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.

On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging, and because most of Earth's plate boundaries are underwater, most volcanoes are found underwater. For example, a mid-ocean ridge, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates whereas the Pacific Ring of Fire has volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates. Volcanoes resulting from divergent tectonic activity are usually non-explosive whereas those resulting from convergent tectonic activity cause violent eruptions. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the crust's plates, such as in the East African Rift, the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field, and the Rio Grande rift in North America. Volcanism away from plate boundaries most likely arises from upwelling diapirs from the core–mantle boundary called mantle plumes, 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) deep within Earth. This results in hotspot volcanism or intraplate volcanism, in which the plume may cause thinning of the crust and result in a volcanic island chain due to the continuous movement of the tectonic plate, of which the Hawaiian hotspot is an example. Volcanoes are usually not created at transform tectonic boundaries where two tectonic plates slide past one another.

The Alpide belt or Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt, or more recently and rarely the Tethyan orogenic belt, is a seismic and orogenic belt that includes an array of mountain ranges extending for more than 15,000 kilometres (9,300 mi) along the southern margin of Eurasia, stretching from Java and Sumatra, through the Indochinese Peninsula, the Himalayas and Transhimalayas, the mountains of Iran, Caucasus, Anatolia, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic.

It includes, from west to east, the major ranges of the Atlas Mountains, the Alps, the Caucasus Mountains, Alborz, Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and the Himalayas. It is the second most seismically active region in the world, after the circum-Pacific belt (the Ring of Fire), with 17% of the world's largest earthquakes.

An earthquake, also called a quake, tremor, or temblor, is the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they cannot be felt, to those violent enough to propel objects and people into the air, damage critical infrastructure, and wreak destruction across entire cities. The seismic activity of an area is the frequency, type, and size of earthquakes experienced over a particular time. The seismicity at a particular location in the Earth is the average rate of seismic energy release per unit volume.

In its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes can occur naturally or be induced by human activities, such as mining, fracking, and nuclear weapons testing. The initial point of rupture is called the hypocenter or focus, while the ground level directly above it is the epicenter. Earthquakes are primarily caused by geological faults, but also by volcanism, landslides, and other seismic events.