Which regions of Russia were part of the ocean?

According to scientists, our planet has existed for about 4.5 billion years, and during this time it has managed to change its appearance many times. Seas and continents on its surface appeared and disappeared, changed their outlines. The places where houses now stand and trees grow were once at the bottom of the ocean, and their ancient inhabitants floated above them in the water column. And it seemed to them, as well as to us, that there could be no other way. If, of course, they thought about it at all.

Let's take a little trip through time and see which parts of our country were the bottom of the ancient seas and how it was.

The sea of the Winter Coast

1.1 billion -750 million years ago, there was one supercontinent on Earth – Rodinia. There are no eyewitnesses left alive, so no one knows its exact outlines. But, according to the calculations of scientists, the sea of the Winter Coast was located near its shores, and its bottom was the territories of Russia from Tula to Arkhangelsk regions. So the size of the ancient sea is impressive. The first multicellular organisms swam in the waters of the sea of the Winter Coast. What they looked like can be guessed from the rare prints in the rocks – they didn't have skeletons yet.

Baltic Sea

It appeared after Rodinia split into several continents, including the Baltic continent. At that time, the Baltic was located near the equator, and the bottom of the Baltic Sea were, among others, the territories of Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was about 470-420 million years ago. If we could travel back to that time, we would see ancient arthropods – trilobites. By the way, even now on the territory of Moscow you can find fossilized remains of ancient marine organisms – belemnites and ammonites.

Ural Ocean

500-300 million years ago, it covered the territories where Bashkortostan, Perm Krai and the Komi Republic are now located. The main part of the ancient inhabitants of these places were fish, including lungfish and brush-finned, which later came to land and became the ancestors of terrestrial animals. And cartilaginous fish, who wished to stay in the water, became the great-great-grandmothers of modern sharks.

Volga Sea

It existed in the interval 150-5 million years ago. Its waters covered the territories of the Republic of Tatarstan, Stavropol Krai, Ulyanovsk, Samara, Saratov, Volgograd, Rostov regions. In those days, in addition to fish and arthropods, marine reptiles lived on Earth. So, off the coast of the Volga in 2002, a skeleton of a pliosaurus was found – an ancient sea creature similar to a dolphin with a long toothy mouth.

Do you want to find out if your hometown was part of an ancient continent or if sea creatures once reigned there? Visit the Ancient Earth Globe page, created by paleontologist Ian Webster. In the search bar on the left, select the name of the city, from above you can select a period based on the number of years that have passed since then (for example, 170 million years), or indicate the era you are interested in in the drop-down list on the right, for example, "the first dinosaurs" or "the first flowers". You will see what the planet looked like at that time, and at the bottom left you can read a brief description of the climate and nature. However, in order to use the service, you will need knowledge of English. But it's still very exciting!