The Ring of Fire is a large area in the Pacific Ocean basin where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. It is this area where 90 percent of the world's earthquakes and 81 percent of volcanoes occur. The presence of a belt of volcanic activity surrounding the Pacific Ocean was noted in the 19th century. The Japanese Islands are on the line of this large circle of volcanic development that surrounds the Pacific coast from Tierra del Fuego around the Moluccas.

The "Ring" stretches along an arc of 40,000 kilometers from the edge of the Pacific Plate, on smaller plates such as the Philippine Sea, to the Cocos and Nazca Plates at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. People most at risk from volcanic eruptions and earthquakes live in countries that lie along the Ring of Fire, including Chile, Japan, the west coast of the US, and other island nations, including the Solomon Islands on the west coast of North and South America.

How are earthquakes caused?
Earthquakes represent the release of energy from the Earth's interior, where a large amount of heat is stored.

Heat causes the plates to move. When two plates move against each other and produce friction, this creates energy. When this energy is released, it causes an earthquake.

"It takes tens of thousands of years for the energy to build up, but only a few seconds to be released," said Hongfeng Yang, a seismologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Tectonic plates usually move on average a few centimeters each year, but when an earthquake strikes, they can move several meters per second.

What are the places in what is known as the Ring of Fire where earthquakes are almost daily? They are:
Chile, Mexico, USA, Canada, Antarctica, Russia, Japan, Philippines, New Zealand, Indonesia, Peru, Taiwan, Guatemala, Ecuador, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Samoa, Singapore, Palau, Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Malaysia./ Taken from CNN 

(BalkanWeb)