East European Craton

The East European Craton is the ancient stable core of the Baltica proto-plate, made up of three crustal segments: Fennoscandia in the northwest, containing the Baltic Shield of accreted Archaean and early Proterozoic crust; Sarmatia in the south, with older Archaean basement; and Volgo-Uralia in the east, where thick sedimentary layers overlie mostly Archaean rock. Its exposed crystalline basement forms the Baltic and Ukrainian shields, while the Ural Mountains mark its eastern margin, formed where the craton collided with the Siberian craton in the late Paleozoic. The craton's oldest rocks date back 3.2 to 3.8 billion years, among the oldest continental crust on Earth, and its southwestern edge is bounded by the Trans-European Suture Zone separating it from the younger mountain belts of western Europe. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/