What is the Ring of Fire and how many volcanoes are there in the world? From Bali’s Mount Agung to Washington’s Mount St Helens
More than 100,000 people in Bali have been evacuated from their homes as the volcano spews out ash
FEARS are mounting that an earthquake in the deadly Ring of Fire zone could kill thousands by laying waste to California.
But what is the Ring of Fire, how did it form, and how many volcanoes are there in the world?
What is the Ring of Fire?
The Ring of Fire is a long chain of volcanoes and earthquakes around the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
There are 452 volcanoes based in the 25,000-mile ring that stretches from North and South America to Japan and New Zealand.
Since 1850 about 90 per cent of the most powerful eruptions happened within this boundary.
Mount Agung in Bali is one of hundreds of active volcanoes along the Ring of Fire.
How did the Ring of Fire form?
More than 100,000 people have been told to flee the "danger zone" after the volcano erupted.
Authorities are enforcing a six-mile exclusion zone around Mount Agung which has been erupting on and off since November 2017, with thousands of flights affected at the peak of it's destruction.
Fears are now growing California's "Big One" could be on the way - a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that would tear through the West coast of the US and cause a tsunami.
Experts have claimed California is overdue a large earthquake and shaking around the Ring of Fire could be a warning.
When dense ocean plates crashed and slid under lighter continental plates. This is a process called subduction.
Tectonic plates are huge slabs of the Earth's crust and move constantly above the mantle - a layer of molten and solid rock.
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How many volcanoes are there in the world?
During the past 10,000 years there are about 1,500 volcanoes that have been active.
About 500 of these have erupted.
Knowing precisely when a volcano will erupt can be difficult to pinpoint, but tell-tale signs like increased sulphur dioxide levels or a sudden rise in minor earthquakes and tremors are key indicators.
Mount St Helens in Washington, United States, erupted in May 1980, killing 57 people.