Pacific Ocean closed loop of the andesite line are most of the deep troughs, submerged volcanic mountains, and oceanic volcanic islands that characterize the Pacific basin. Here basaltic lavas gently flow out of rifts to build huge dome-shaped volcanic mountains whose eroded summits form island arcs, chains, and clusters. Outside the andesite line, volcanism is of the explosive type, and the Pacific Ring of Fire is the world's foremost belt of explosive volcanism. The Ring of Fire is named after the several hundred active volcanoes that sit above the various subduction zones. The Pacific Ocean is the only ocean which is almost
Ring of Fire II to share in creating the main threads and plot lines of the milieu so that this work and the large second full novel in the series, "1633", were written contemporaneously. Flint is on record that large portions of "1633" were adjusted drastically, even thrown out and rewritten as later submissions in the collected stories in Ring of Fire impacted the various and diverse story threads. For a fuller precis on this interesting and historic literary development see Assiti Shards series. Flint's e-book preface refers to this work as being a prequel to his own short novel (below), but the title