Baltica

thumb|upright=1.35|Baltica (in white, at the centre of the image, with outline of present-day Europe for reference) Baltica is a paleocontinent that formed in the Paleoproterozoic and now constitutes northwestern Eurasia, or Europe north of the Trans-European Suture Zone and west of the Ural Mountains. The thick core of Baltica, the East European Craton, is more than three billion years old and formed part of the Rodinia supercontinent at 1 .

==Tectonic history== thumb|upright=1.75|1.1 Ga Baltica was located in what is now the South Pacific. (Current location of Australia added for reference.) thumb|upright=1.9|550 million years ago Baltica (green) was an isolated continent located near the South Pole. thumb|upright=1.75|Baltica in the Ordovician Period Baltica formed at 2.0–1.7 Ga by the collision of three Archaean-Proterozoic continental blocks: Fennoscandia (including the exposed Baltic Shield), Sarmatia (Ukrainian Shield and Voronezh Massif), and Volgo-Uralia (covered by younger deposits). Sarmatia and Volgo-Uralia formed a proto-craton (sometimes called "Proto-Baltica") at c. 2.0 Ga which collided with Fennoscandia c. 1.8–1.7 Ga. The sutures between these three blocks were reactivated during the Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic.