Palæos:		Continents
GEOGRAPHY		Baltica

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Palaeogeography

Baltica

The continent of Baltica consisted of the lands which now surround the Baltic Sea.  It is one of the older cratons, probably built on basement rock dating back to late Archean or Paleoproterozoic times.  Hacker et al. (2003).  Baltica was one of a number of continental blocks that broke away from the supercontinent Rodinia, but refused to get involved in the whole Gondwana thing (the others non-conformists being Laurentia, Siberia, and Kazakh).  Each of these continental blocks carried with it a broad and shallow coastal shelf where Cambrian marine life flourished, with a unique and indigenous fauna developing around each continent.

During the Ordovician, Baltica and Siberia drifted toward Laurentia (Baltica drifting mostly west), creating a loose collection of large land masses separated by shallow coastal seas.  The Devonian meeting of the continents Laurentia and Baltica to form Euramerica (or Laurussia) caused the Acadian / Caledonide Orogeny (mountain building period), with the usual belching of volcanos, messy climate changes, etc. that generally accompany this sort of collision.  Fortunately, by this time, Baltica was in the process of consolidating eastern Avalonia, Armorica, and other bits and pieces.  It had thus became Europe, and consequently blamed the whole thing on North America.  

Hacker, BR TB Andersen, DB Root, L Mehl, JM Mattinson & JL Wooden (2003), Exhumation of high-pressure rocks beneath the Solund Basin, Western Gneiss Region of Norway.  J. Metamorphic Geol. 21: 613-629 

page uploaded 5 April 2002
revised ATW060909
checked ATW030914
unless otherwise specified, content by M. Alan Kazlev 2002
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