Ring of Fire volcanic eruptions of the last 11,700 years occurred at volcanoes in the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire is a direct result of plate tectonics: the movement and collisions of lithospheric plates, especially subduction in the northern portion. The southern portion is more complex, with a number of smaller tectonic plates in collision with the Pacific plate from the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Bougainville, Tonga, and New Zealand. The presence of a belt of volcanic activity surrounding the Pacific Ocean was observed in the 19th century. "They [the Japanese Islands] are in the line of that immense circle of
Ring of Fire (Northern Ontario) of about "1.5 million hectares". Although the Ring of Fire crescent covers 5,000 square kilometres (approximately 1,930 square miles), most discoveries made by 2012 were within a twenty-kilometre-long strip. Ontario's Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry Michael Gravelle called the region "home to one of the most promising mineral development opportunities in Ontario in more than a century". Tony Clement, Canada's Treasury Board President and the FedNor minister responsible for the Ring of Fire, claimed it will be the economic equivalent of the Athabasca oil sands, with a potential of generating $120 billion. Clement says the Ring of Fire