How does subduction create volcanoes around the Pacific Ocean?

Around the Pacific Ocean, volcanoes are primarily created through the process of subduction, where an oceanic plate converges with and moves beneath a continental or another oceanic plate.12

As the subducting plate descends into the asthenosphere, it carries seafloor sediments rich in water and carbon dioxide into the mantle. These compounds act as fluxes, reducing the melting temperature of the surrounding mantle rocks and generating magma. This magma, being buoyant, rises through the overriding plate to form volcanoes.34

Because this magma often has high viscosity and contains trapped gases from the subducted sediments and crustal rocks, these volcanoes—which form the Ring of Fire—are frequently highly explosive. This geologic setting is responsible for approximately 75 percent of the world's volcanoes, manifesting as island arcs or volcanic chains along continental margins.3124