Earthquakes and Volcanoes

We have talked about the earthquake hat hit Napier, and the active volcanoes in Tongario. The reason for all this activity is due to the tectonic plates that meet underneath New Zealand:

This diagram shows a cross section of North Island, west to east. You can see the Pacific tectonic plate being pushed *under* the Indian-Australia plate which is moving from the west. Earthquakes, volcanoes and geothermal springs occur along the line of where these two plates clash: