I know this is an odd request but I need this material as best as can be answered. I am trying to write a fictional story about something and the information is vital to my story. What would happen to the continents of the earth if one of the volcanoes of the Ring of Fire was to erupt and cause a chain reaction with the other volcanoes in the ring? What other things would be caused by such an incident? Tidal waves? Earthquakes? I need to know about any major land shifts that would take place as well as what the earth would look like after such an event. If it is at all possible, I would appreciate a diagram of what the United States would look like. What would the amount of ash and other debris be? Would it cover a vast amount of the surface of the earth? How much would the population of the planet suffer? Any and all information would b most appreciated. As I said, this information is vital to the fictional storyI am going to write, please help me with this. Thank you very much. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Sheryl Russell

Well, that scenario is pretty far-fetched so I can't give you any good predicitons (or diagrams, really). For one thing, even if all the volcanoes in the ring of fire were to erupt at one time it wouldn't really affect plate tectonics. Impressive as they are, volcanic eruptions are still a good deal smaller with respect to the energy they involve, than are the movements of the plates. In fact, it is the movement of the plates that causes volcanism, not the other way around. Your other questions regarding the suffering of the population could go from really severe to not so severe. Volcanic eruptions aren't often associated with tsunami (but they can be). If you thought up a scenario where the eruptions all involved big collapses of volcanic flanks (such as happened at Mt. St. Helens in 1980) then you could generate a lot of tsunami. The main problem would probably be the ash generated by a lot of eruptions. If enough of the ash made it into the upper atmosphere then the temperature of the Earth could be decreased. This would have all kinds of effects, including causing crops to fail, increased snowfall, droughts, etc. Of course having all these eruptions happen at once is not something any volcanologist expects to happen. I think I'll leave it up to your good imagination to fill in the details after that.

Sincerely,
Scott Rowland

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