As the ocean rock of the Pacific plate is pushed down underneath the continents into the mantle, it quickly heats up, melts, rises to the surface as lava and forms the chains of volcanoes that run parallel to the trenches. The trenches are the places where the Pacific Ocean plate is being shoved underneath the continental plates that surround it (scientists call this subduction). In fact, there would be no Ring of Fire without them. The Kermadec Trench, which the JOIDES Resolution crossed over yesterday, has places as deep as 10,047 meters (32,963 feet) below sea level, places deep enough to hide Mt Everest and still have 3,934 extra feet of ocean to spare (which is good to know, in case if we ever feel the need to do that).Īll along the Pacific Ring of Fire you find deep ocean trenches. These trenches contain some of the deepest places in the ocean. The dark blue line was not just put there by the person who made this computer image it is a feature of the ocean floor, the Kermadec and Tonga trenches. To the right of it, all the volcanoes (there are a lot there too, but most of them are extinct) are not. To the left of it all the volcanoes (and there are a lot of them) are in the Pacific Ring of Fire. If you look at the picture that accompanies this blog, you will notice that just to the left of the Louisville seamount trail is a dark blue line that runs all the way down to New Zealand.
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