Which countries have the largest and most frequent earthquakes?
Around 75% of the world's seismic energy is released at the edge of the Pacific, where the thinner Pacific plate is forced beneath thicker continental crust along 'subduction zones'. This 40,000 km band of seismicity stretches up the west coasts of South and Central America and from the Northern USA to Alaska, the Aleutians, Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australasia.
Around 15% of the total seismic energy is released where the Eurasian and African plates are colliding, forming a band of seismicity which stretches from Burma, westwards to the Himalayas to the Caucasus and the Mediterranean.
