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 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