Why aren't there any volcanoes on the east side of America, even though there are plate boundaries there?

Question

diverging boundaries, converging boundaries, and hot spots are on the east coast of the U.S. the way there are on the west coast. then why aren't there as many volcanoes, if any?

Answer 1

There isn't a continental plate boundary close enough to cause volcanoes. The closest one to the east coast is in the mid atlantic. Because this is so deep into the ocean, it creates sea-floor spreading. It is a way for the ocean floor to build as liquid lava flows from the mantle into the crust, creating more sea floor.

Answer 2

Another reason is that there is a small tectonic plate off of the west coast of the U.S. called the Juan de Fuca plate.  It is slowly sub-ducting beneath the North American Plate and when it is sub-ducted far enough into the earth, beneath the North American plate, it encounters heat and pressure (from the core and mantel of the earth) and melts.  This area is known as the Cascade Subduction Zone and it is this molten rock that, on occasion, returns to the earths surface, in the form of a volcanic eruption. Mt St Helen's is part of this area.  The Volcanoes of northern California were also fueled by this same sub-duction system, but at those latitudes present-day, the plate has fully sub-ducted, and no longer creating as much magma (melted sub-terrain) molten rock.  (The Juan de Fuca was once long enough, that it reached to the south to California). The southern most volcanoes are becoming quieter and less active.  That is way the cascades are full of volcanoes,  California full of dead or dying ones and because there is not such situation out east, none on the e. seaboard of the us.  Peace

Answer 3

The interior of North America and the East coast lie far from any currently active plate boundaries and therefore are not locales where volcanism can occur.  

There are three scenarios where volcanoes can occur. The first is where there are divergent margins where plates move apart, such as in Iceland, East Africa and the Rio Grande.

The second is where there are convergent margins, where the Earth's plates collide and one dips below the other forming a volcanic arc that may become active and even violent, such as those that ring the Pacific Plate and include Mount St. Helens.

The third case is with isolated volcanoes far from plate boundaries caused by hot spots on the Earth's mantle such as those on Hawaii.