Why do most volcanoes erupt on the Caribbean?

Answer 1

I didn't know most volcanoes were on islands, but volcanoes do form islands. When a volcano erupts on the ocean floor and pours out it's lava (melted rock), the water cools it quickly into rock. As this happens again and again over time the rock builds up until it reaches the surface of the ocean. Once it breaks through the surface it's called an island. This is how the Hawaiian Islands were formed.

Answer 2

Volcanoes erupt in the Caribbean because the area lies at the junction of a number of tectonic plates. These enormous plates, which make up the surface of the earth, are constantly moving, driven by currents within the molten rock underneath. The Caribbean plate is relatively small, and borders the North American plate, the South American plate, the Nazca plate and the Cocos plate.

Answer 3

Because it is an island and is next to the water...(basically all islands have volcanoes and earthquakes its part of their geography)

Another example is Hawaii it was volcanoes and earthquakes

Answer 4

Most of the volcanoes in the Caribbean are at the eastern end of the sea. Here, the Caribbean Plate is pushing into portions of the South American and North American Plates which slide or subduct beneath it. This process generates magma, a mixture of gas dissolved in molten rock. This rises through the Caribbean plate, generating a volcanic arc.

Answer 5

One of the most common settings for volcanic activity that is is visible to humans is a subduction zone. This process can happen both at sea and at the edges of continents. However, most of earth's crust is of the oceanic variety, so quite a few subduction zones involve only oceanic crust. Hot spots can also produce volcanoes, on both continental and oceanic crust. However, since oceanic crust is much thinner than continental crust, it is much easier for them under the ocean. The new volcano that erupts onto the ocean floor eventually builds itself up into an island.

Another way to think about it is this: 75% of earth is ocean, so it would be logical that about the same proportion of volcanoes would form at sea.

Answer 6

Some of the islands in the Caribbean were formed by volcanoes as a result of the subduction of the North and South American plates beneath the Caribbean Plate.