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How were Laurentia and Baltica joined during the Devonian Period?
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Devonian Period
Distribution of landmasses, mountainous regions, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins during the early Devonian Period. Included in the paleogeographic reconstruction are the locations of the interval's subduction zones.
Near the beginning of the Devonian Period, the paleocontinents of Laurentia and Baltica united to form a single landmass known as Laurussia or Euramerica.1
This union was the result of a continental collision that began during the Silurian Period and was driven by the closing of the Iapetus Ocean, a process marked by the Iapetus suture. The collision was characterized by the Caledonian orogeny, a major mountain-building event that created a chain stretching from eastern North America through Greenland, western Scandinavia, and the British Isles. This tectonic activity involved significant igneous processes and resulted in extensive terrestrial deposits, most notably the Old Red Sandstone, which covered much of the newly joined landmass.12