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Geologic hazards are responsible for great loss of life and destruction of property. In the twentieth century more than a million people worldwide have been killed by earthquakes alone, and the value of the property destroyed by earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis amounts to scores of billions of dollars. Latin America suffers its share of this destructive force: during the period 1985-1987, earthquakes in Ecuador, Mexico, and El Salvador and a volcanic eruption in Colombia killed more than 36,000 people.
The Nazca Plate, sliding slowly eastward on the earth's mantle, slips under the South American Plate along the Peru-Chile Trench. Friction produces stress and temperature increases; the subducted rock melts and expands, causing additional stress and upward movement of the magma. The magma reaches the surface, erupting to form volcanoes, and the crustal rocks respond to the stresses by breaking and moving. Thus the crust above the subduction zone is demarcated by volcanoes and active faults. Movement along the faults causes earthquakes.
This zone of volcanism and earthquakes, involving several plates and trenches and manifested in Latin America by the Andes Mountains and their extension into Central America and Mexico, virtually encircles the Pacific Ocean and is known as the "Ring of Fire." Geologic hazards-earthquakes, the landslides they induce, and volcanic eruptions-are concentrated in this region, and the seismic sea waves called tsunamis most commonly originate from earthquake shocks there as well. Similar geologic conditions extend into the Caribbean, which is considered a part of the Ring of Fire even though not a part of the Pacific Basin.
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