Ring of Fire the east and the Okhotsk Sea to the west. Immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula runs the 10,500-m-deep Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, where rapid subduction of the Pacific Plate fuels the intense volcanism. Almost all types of volcanic activity are present, from stratovolcanoes and shield volcanoes to Hawaiian-style fissure eruptions. Over 30 active volcanoes and hundreds of dormant and extinct volcanoes are in two major volcanic belts. The most recent activity takes place in the eastern belt, starting in the north at the Shiveluch volcanic complex, which lies at the junction of the Aleutian and Kamchatka volcanic arcs. Just
Ring of Fire in 1929; a magnitude 8.1 in 1949 (Canada's largest recorded earthquake); and a magnitude 7.4 in 1970. The Ring of Fire is a direct result of plate tectonics: the movement and collisions of lithospheric plates. The eastern section of the ring is the result of the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate being subducted beneath the westward-moving South American Plate. The Cocos Plate is being subducted beneath the Caribbean Plate, in Central America. A portion of the Pacific Plate and the small Juan de Fuca Plate are being subducted beneath the North American Plate. Along the northern portion, the northwestward-moving