page_title: Ring of Fire
section_title: Canada
hierarchical_section_title: Ring of Fire / North American Cordillera / Canada
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of young volcanoes in western Canada.
context_page_description: The Ring of Fire is a major area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean where many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. In a large 40,000 km horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and plate movements. It has 452 volcanoes.
  About 90% of the world's earthquakes and about 81% of the world's largest earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire. All but three of the world's 25 largest volcanic eruptions of the last 11,700 years occurred at volcanoes in the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire is a direct result of plate tectonics: the movement and collisions of lithospheric plates, especially subduction in the northern portion. The western portion is more complex, with a number of smaller tectonic plates in collision with the Pacific Plate from the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Bougainville, Tonga, and New Zealand.
context_section_description: The Public Safety Geo-science Program at the Natural Resources Canada undertakes research to support risk reduction from the effects of space weather, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and landslides.
  British Columbia and Yukon are home to a vast region of volcanoes and volcanic activity in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Several mountains in populated areas of British Columbia are dormant volcanoes. Most of these were active during the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. Although none of Canada's volcanoes are currently erupting, several volcanoes, volcanic fields, and volcanic centers are considered potentially active. Hot springs are at some volcanoes, while 10 volcanoes in British Columbia appear related to seismic activity since 1975, including: the Silverthrone Caldera, Mount Meager massif, Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley massif, Castle Rock, The Volcano, Mount Edziza, Hoodoo Mountain, Crow Lagoon, and Nazko Cone. The volcanoes are grouped into five volcanic belts with different tectonic settings.
  The Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province (sometimes known as the Stikine Volcanic Belt) is the most active volcanic region in Canada. It formed due to extensional cracking, faulting, and rifting of the North American Plate as the Pacific Plate grinds and slides past the Queen Charlotte Fault, unlike subduction that produces the volcanoes in Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The region has Canada's largest volcanoes, much larger than the minor stratovolcanoes found in the Canadian portion of the Cascade Volcanic Arc. Several eruptions are known to have occurred within the last 400 years. Mount Edziza is a huge volcanic complex that erupted several times in the past several thousand years and has formed several cinder cones and lava flows. The complex comprises the Mount Edziza Plateau, a large volcanic plateau (65 km long and 20 km wide) made of predominantly basaltic lava flows with four large stratovolcanoes built on top of the plateau. The associated lava domes and satellite cones were constructed over the past 7.5 million years during five magmatic cycles beginning with eruption of alkali basalts and ending with felsic and basaltic eruptions as late as 1,340 years ago. The blocky lava flows still maintain their original forms. Hoodoo Mountain is a tuya in northwestern British Columbia, which has had several periods of subglacial eruptions. The oldest eruptions occurred about 100,000 years ago and the most recent about 7000 years ago. Hoodoo Mountain is also considered active, so it could erupt in the future. The nearby Tseax Cone and The Volcano produced some of Canada's youngest lava flows, about 150 years old.
  Canada's worst known geophysical disaster came from the Tseax Cone during the 18th century at the southernmost end of the volcanic belt. The eruption produced a 22.5-km-long lava flow, destroying the Nisga'a villages and the death of at least 2000 Nisga'a people by volcanic gases and poisonous smoke. The Nass River valley was inundated by the lava flows and contains abundant tree molds and lava tubes. The event happened at the same time as the arrival of the first European explorers to penetrate the uncharted coastal waters of northern British Columbia. Today, the basaltic lava deposits are a draw to tourists and are part of the Nisga'a Memorial Lava Beds Provincial Park.
  The Garibaldi Volcanic Belt in southwestern British Columbia is the northern extension of the Cascade Volcanic Arc in the United States (which includes Mount Baker and Mount St. Helens) and contains the most explosive young volcanoes in Canada. It formed as a result of subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate (a remnant of the much larger Farallon Plate) under the North American Plate along the Cascadia subduction zone. The Garibaldi Volcanic Belt includes the Bridge River Cones, Mount Cayley massif, Mount Fee, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Price, Mount Meager massif, the Squamish Volcanic Field, and more smaller volcanoes. The eruption styles in the belt range from effusive to explosive, with compositions from basalt to
caption: Map of young volcanoes in Western Canada
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