The ring of fire is where the Pacific plate meets the other major tectonic plates.
40,000 kilometres long, it sweeps up the west coast of America, across to Asia, through Indonesia and PNG, above Australia, then down to New Zealand.
90 percent of the world’s earthquakes take place along it, including those in Japan and Christchurch.
GNS science educator Julian Thomson says that it can cause earthquakes any where, any time.
Watch the video.