For decades, geologists have been puzzled by the mechanisms that give rise to the kind of volcanoes that form the so-called "ring of fire" around the Pacific Ocean. These arc volcanoes, which account for about 10 to 25 percent of all volcanoes, are produced when one of the plates that make up Earth's crust plunges beneath another plate, a process called subduction. What was unclear was what factors controlled when, how and at what depth fluids and molten rock from these subducting plates. (source: web.mit.edu)
|
