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
Kula ring Kula ring Kula, also known as the Kula exchange or Kularing, is a ceremonial exchange system conducted in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The Kula ring was made famous by the father of modern anthropology, Bronisław Malinowski, who used this test case to argue for the universality of rational decision making (even among 'natives'), and for the cultural nature of the object of their effort. Malinowski's path-breaking work, "Argonauts of the Western Pacific" (1922), directly confronted the question, "why would men risk life and limb to travel across huge expanses of dangerous ocean to give away what