There’s a deadly
40,000 km (29,400 mi) long zone
that passes through 15 countries.
This area is dotted with volcanoes,
giving it the name the Ring of Fire.
And we've decided that right now,
all 452 volcanoes
are going to erupt
at the same time.
Talk about an explosive event.
The Ring of Fire is a horseshoe-shaped area
that stretches around the edge
of the Pacific Ocean.
Its volcanoes formed
when continental plates
slid on top of oceanic plates,
forcing the oceanic plates
into the mantle below.
This tectonic movement is called subduction,
and it doesn’t just create volcanoes.
It also causes massive earthquakes.
So if all these volcanoes erupted at once,
we wouldn’t just be talking about lava flowing.
We’d be witnessing massive earthquakes,
toxic gas,
and tsunamis.
You can thank tectonic plates
for causing volcanic eruptions
and devastating earthquakes.
These plates create
the Earth's crust and mantle,
and they're constantly moving.
As they move,
they collide and rub against each other,
eventually breaking
and releasing seismic waves.
And when one tectonic plate gets pushed
below another,
it creates molten rock called magma.
Magma is lighter than rock,
so it rises to the surface,
trapping gas on its way.
When magma is thick,
these gas bubbles can’t escape easily,
so pressure builds.
When the pressure builds enough,
it causes an explosive volcanic eruption.
And the volcanoes in the Ring of Fire are deadly.
In 1814, Mount Mayon erupted
and killed more than 1,200 people in the Philippines.
And when Mount Kadovar erupted in 2018,
the entire population of Papua New Guinea evacuated.
For all 452 volcanoes to erupt at once,
we’d need a pretty large tectonic event.
Like the forming of a new supercontinent.
Ever since Pangea broke up,
the Atlantic has been widening,
and forcing the Pacific Ocean to narrow.
Eventually,
some of these continental pieces could collide,
creating a seismic catastrophe.
Well, if you lived anywhere in the Ring of Fire,
your local volcano would explode
and spew lava.
Deadly earthquakes would happen next,
which would trigger tsunamis
all along the Pacific Ocean coastline.
But these spectacular events
aren’t even the most lethal part.
The two biggest hazards from any
volcanic cataclysm
are ash and volcanic gases.
And they would affect the whole world.
The 452 simultaneous eruptions
would launch a lot of ash into the air.
The ash would cover the world,
completely blocking sunlight.
In 1991, when Mount Pinatubo erupted,
it cooled parts of the world
by up to 0.4 °C (0.7 °F) for two years.
And the thick layer of ash
wouldn’t just cause temperatures to drop.
It would also cause massive crop failures,
leading to a global food shortage.
And, as if things couldn’t get any worse,
the toxic volcanic gases
would create acid rain.
The rain would make the oceans even more acidic,
killing off coral reefs.
Marine life would suffer an extinction event.
The worst part is that we can’t predict volcanic eruptions.
There would be no warnings.
Cities would be destroyed,
and many people would die.
Luckily,
it's extremely unlikely that this would happen.
But there will always be activity in the Ring of Fire.
And there's another challenge.
While the rate of eruptions isn’t increasing,
the damage they cause is.
The more we settle and build
in the shadow of active volcanoes,
the more life and property will be lost
when they explode.
And it’s not just the active volcanoes
we have to worry about.
Dormant volcanoes sometimes wake up too.
It wasn’t until 2013
that scientists discovered
slumbering volcanoes under Antarctica.
But that’s a story for another What If.