Japanese island arc

The Japanese island arc is a chain of islands and volcanic terrain formed by subduction around the margins of the Eurasian and North American plates.

Subduction: The descent of one tectonic plate beneath another into the mantle. Oceanic plates descend beneath Japan, generating earthquakes and the magma that feeds its volcanoes.
Pacific Plate: A major tectonic plate underlying much of the Pacific Ocean. Its westward subduction drives volcanism and major earthquakes along northeastern Japan.
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami: A magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami off northeastern Honshu on March 11, 2011. The disaster showed how strain on the Japan Trench can produce destructive megathrust earthquakes and tsunamis.
Izu-Bonin-Mariana Arc: A volcanic island arc extending south from Japan through the Izu and Bonin islands toward the Mariana Islands. Its northern segment links Japan to a long chain of islands above Pacific Plate subduction.
North American Plate: A major tectonic plate that includes North America and parts of the western North Atlantic and Arctic regions. Older regional descriptions assigned northeastern Japan to this plate, but finer models often use the Okhotsk Plate.
Japan Trench: A deep ocean trench east of northeastern Honshu, formed at a convergent plate boundary. The Pacific Plate sinks beneath the plate carrying northeastern Japan along this trench.
Philippine Sea Plate: An oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Philippine Sea and surrounding western Pacific. It subducts beneath southwestern Japan, shaping the Ryukyu and Nankai margins.
Nankai megathrust earthquakes: Large earthquakes generated by rupture of the plate boundary beneath the Nankai Trough. Their recurrence is a central concern for hazard planning across southwestern Japan.
Kuril Islands: A volcanic island chain extending from Hokkaido toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Kurils continue the arc northeast of Hokkaido along the Pacific Plate boundary.
Plate tectonics: The theory that Earth’s lithosphere is divided into moving plates whose interactions shape the surface. Japan’s arc depends on how plate boundaries and motions are defined across the western Pacific.

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