The Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province is produced by continental rifting as the Pacific Plate slides northward along the Queen Charlotte Fault, on its way to the Aleutian Trench, which extends along the southern coastline of Alaska and the adjacent waters of northeastern Siberia off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula.[5] As the continental crust stretches, hot magma rises and the near-surface rocks fracture along steeply graduated cracks parallel to the rift known as faults.