Geology of The Pacific Ocean - Andesite Line

Andesite Line

The Pacific is a broad ocean basin (unlike the narrow Atlantic Ocean) and extends over a width of 10,000 miles (16,000 km) between New Guinea and Peru. The andesite line, a zone of intense volcanic and seismic activity, is a major regional distinction in the Pacific. The petrologic boundary separates the deeper mafic igneous rock of the Central Pacific Basin from the partially submerged continental areas of felsic igneous rock on its margins. The andesite line follows the western edge of the islands off California and passes south of the Aleutian arc, along the eastern edge of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Japan, the Mariana Islands, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand's North Island.

The dissimilarity continues northeastward along the western edge of the Andes Cordillera along South America to Mexico, returning then to the islands off California. Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, New Guinea, and New Zealand lie outside the andesite line.

Outside of the andesite line, volcanism is explosive; the Pacific Ring of Fire is the world's foremost belt of explosive volcanism. The Ring of Fire is named after the several hundred active volcanoes that sit above the various subduction zones. In 2009, the deepest undersea eruption ever recorded occurred at the West Mata submarine volcano, a mile beneath the ocean, close to the Tonga-Kermadec Trench, within the Ring of Fire; it was filmed by the US Jason robotic submersible which descended over 1,100 metres (3,600 ft). The Pacific Ocean is the only ocean which is almost totally bounded by subduction zones. Only the Antarctic and Australian coasts have no nearby subduction zones.