The tectonic plates on Earth have been drifting, shifting and subducting under one another ever since the breakup of the super-continent Pan, billions of years ago.  Subduction is the recycling of older land masses below newer land masses.

The Pacific Ocean and Pacific Tectonic Plate have been slowly shrinking in size for eons.  Older landmasses slide and grind underneath newer landmasses, recycle, and come back to the surface again in the form of molten lava, where it used to form new land.  The ongoing shrinking process of the Pacific Ocean/Plate is caused, by-and-large, by continental plate drift or continental shifting of the North/South American and Eurasian/Indo-Australian Tectonic Plates.  The eastern edge of the Pacific Plate has been/is subducting underneath the North/South American tectonic Plates.  The Cascade, Sierra and Andes mountains and the San Andreas fault are the creation of this ongoing subduction event.  At the same time the western edge of the Pacific Plate has been/is subducting underneath the Eurasian/Indo-Australian Plates.  The result is a slow but sure shrinking in size of the Pacific Ocean and Pacific tectonic plate.

Tectonic plate collisions cause great amounts of friction (earthquakes), push portions of land masses up (mountain building), and force magma and partially melted rock up through fissures in the Earth's mantle and crust (volcanic eruptions).  They also cause some land masses to rise above sea level and other landmasses to submerge below sea level. 

The Atlantic Ocean has been slowly expanding in size for thousands of years.  The system largely responsible for both the shrinking of the Pacific Ocean and the expanding of the Atlantic Ocean in size is seafloor spreading.  Because both oceans are contracting and expanding at relatively the same rate, the fluctuations in sea level from this process have not been and are not a major concern.  At the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is a long rift running north and south.  It is a fiery gash in the Earth's crust where molten lava is being forced up and out, causing the ocean floor to spread.  The new crust is slowly moving away from the ridges of the gash at a rate of 1-2 inches per year.  Called the Mid-Atlantic ridge, this rift is separating the Eurasian Plate from the North American Plate in the North Atlantic Ocean, and separating the African Plate from the South American Plate in the South Atlantic Ocean.  It extends from a junction with the Mid-Arctic Ridge northeast of Greenland, southward to the Bouvet Triple Junction in the South Atlantic.  Seafloor spreading causes the North and South American Plates to move westward and the Eurasian, African and Indo-Australian Plates to move eastward, thus causing the older Pacific Plate to move northeast and the eastern and western edges of the plate to subduct underneath the North/South American Plates and the Eurasian/Indo-Australian Plates respectively.

The force caused by the collisions from the four adjacent tectonic plates is not only causing the Pacific Ocean and Pacific Plate to shrink in size, but also causing it to rise.  Portions of the old continent of Mu will be seen again above the waves of the Pacific, not in one great landmass as was the case some 50,000 years ago, but in a small number of large islands as existed during the end of that great civilization which was called Lemuria before the islands were reclaimed by the Pacific Ocean.  There are large spans of under-water mountain chains in the Pacific Ocean that will rise above sea level and become islands, and become habitable.

The ultimate cause of earthquakes and volcanoes is, of course, Mother Earth.  The main thing we should take from this ongoing drama is that Mother Earth is in control of this process and has been slowly (in terms of human perception)  repairing and balancing herself from the beginning after she was violently ripped from planet Tiamat, when most of her surface was water except for one massive landmass called Pan.  When she finally comes into her balance, she will no longer wobble in her spin or rotation, the landmasses will become more stable, seafloor spreading will subside or stop, and earthquakes and volcanoes will greatly decrease in size and magnitude or stop altogether.

Thank you Mother Earth for allowing us humans to play a small part in your return to balance and for being as gentle as you can with us in your healing process.  May we be given the insight and sustain the will to do what we can to continue to assist you in this process.

 Rocky Montana