48 EUROPE/East European Craton Figure 13 Fennoscandia, Sarmatia, and Volgo Uralia, the three crustal segments of the East European Craton (EEC), evolved differently during the Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic Sarmatia and Volgo Uralia merged at around 2.1 2.0 Ga, creating a larger continental unit, Volgo Sarmatia, and thereafter shared a common history Between about 1.8 Ga and 1.7 Ga, Fennoscandia and Volgo Sarmatia gradually amalgamated to form the EEC The eastern and western margins of the EEC differed during the rest of the Proterozoic: mostly passive in the east and with episodes of activity in the west In the west, the ca 1.0 Ga Sveconorwegian collisional orogeny marks the beginning of the participation of the EEC in the Supercontinent Rodinia ß Svetlana Bogdanova side, while the so-called East Voronezh belts mark the edge of Sarmatia The south-westernmost belt represents a volcanic island arc, while the north-eastern belts preserve back-arc volcanic rocks and turbidites Voluminous granitic magmatism occurred particularly in VolgoUralia During the Mesoproterozoic, the Pachelma Aulacogen developed along the Sarmatia–VolgoUralia junction After that collision, it was several hundred million years before the combined Sarmatia and Volgo-Uralia (‘Volgo-Sarmatia’) approached Fennoscandia Meanwhile, accretionary crustal growth occurred separately along the edges of both Fennoscandia and Sarmatia At approximately 2.0 Ga, subduction of oceanic crust beneath the presently north-western edge of Volgo-Sarmatia commenced This process eventually consumed all the oceanic crust between the protocraton and Fennoscandia Within the continental margin of Sarmatia, the Osnitsk– Mikashevichi Belt began to develop, while the Central Belarus island arcs were formed outboard Further west, the Middle Lithuanian Suture Zone, separating east–west trending rocks of the West Lithuanian Terrane from a belt of north-north-eaststriking rocks in eastern Lithuania, was created It may either coincide with the actual Fennoscandia– Sarmatia suture or be one of several components within a swarm of intersegment terrane boundaries Palaeomagnetic data indicate that the colliding segments were still at least 2000 km apart between 1.80 Ga and 1.75 Ga The Palaeoproterozoic suture between Fennoscandia and Volgo-Sarmatia became the site where the Volyn–Orsha and central Russian systems of aulacogens, rifts and troughs, and sedimentary basins were developed in the Late Mesoproterozoic and Early Neoproterozoic See Also Europe: Timanides of Northern Russia; Scandinavian Caledonides (with Greenland); The Urals Igneous Rocks: