Why does New Zealand have so many volcanoes?

Answer 1

The simple reason is: New Zealand is on a continental fault line. Earthquakes and volcanic activity are the result of movement between tectonic plates. These plates constantly move as underground stresses are released through the Earth's crust. The islands of New Zealand are situated over the boundary between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates. The Pacific "Ring of Fire" is the area where most of the world's seismic activity takes place. It is a ring encircling the Pacific Ocean in a roughly horseshoe shape, beginning at New Zealand, continuing up through the Philippines and Indonesia, through the edge of the eastern Asian countries, then down the western coast of the USA and South America. Australia, however, does not lie directly over any such fault lines. Occasional minor quakes and tremors occur from time to time (such as that which occurred in Meckering, Western Australia, in 1963). However, even Australia's largest and most devastating earthquake (Newcastle, 1989) is believed to have been triggered by 200 years of underground coal mining, not by seismic activity.

Answer 2

New zealand has so many volcanoes because it is right on top of tectonics plate beneath the earths crust. the tectonic plates subduct which leads to a plate going over another one creating volcano's.

Answer 3

Earthquakes happen mainly on plate boundries. New Zealand is on the boundary of the Australian plate and the Pacific plate. This gives New Zealand not only much of it's geography such as mountains and volcanoes but also earthquakes. Australia lies in the middle of the Australian plate with no plate boundries nearby. Earthquakes are rare in the middle of plates.

Answer 4

New Zealand's active volcanoes are caused by upwellings from the Pacific Plate where it subducts below the Australian one. Australia certainly has volcanoes - Mt Kosciusko would be the most well known, but has no active ones.

Answer 5

They are what form the land.