地球的外壳并不是一整块，而是由十几块巨大的岩石板块拼成的，就像一个裂开又拼起来的鸡蛋壳。这些板块漂浮在滚烫柔软的地幔上，每年只移动几厘米——差不多和指甲生长的速度一样慢。可就是这看不见的缓慢移动，在板块交界的地方挤压、拉扯、摩擦，才造成了地震，也在薄弱的地方撬开裂缝，让地下的岩浆找到出口。

Earth's outer shell isn't one solid piece, it's made up of more than a dozen giant rock plates, fitted together like a cracked eggshell put back in place. These plates float on the hot, soft mantle below, moving only a few centimeters a year, about as slow as your fingernails grow. But that invisible, slow movement is exactly what causes earthquakes where the plates grind and pull against each other, and what pries open cracks in weak spots, giving magma underground a way out.

当岩浆从地壳裂缝里喷出来，就形成了火山。环太平洋沿岸有一圈几乎连成整环的活火山带，科学家叫它"火环"，日本富士山、印尼喀拉喀托火山都在这条线上。1883年喀拉喀托火山爆发的声音，据记录三千多公里外都能听到，是人类有记录以来最响的声音之一。火山虽然可怕，但喷发后的火山灰也让周围的土地变得格外肥沃。

When magma bursts up through cracks in the Earth's crust, a volcano is born. A ring of active volcanoes runs almost all the way around the Pacific Rim, scientists call it the Ring of Fire, and Japan's Mount Fuji and Indonesia's Krakatoa both sit along this line. When Krakatoa erupted in 1883, the sound was reportedly heard more than three thousand kilometers away, one of the loudest sounds ever recorded in human history. Volcanoes may be terrifying, but the ash they leave behind also makes the surrounding land remarkably fertile.

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