The Ural Ocean was a small, ancient ocean that was situated between Siberia

Siberia (continent)

Siberia is the craton located in the heart of the region of Siberia. Siberia or "Angaraland" is today the Central Siberian Plateau...

 and Baltica

Baltica

Baltica is a name applied by geologists to a late-Proterozoic, early-Palaeozoic continent that now includes the East European craton of northwestern Eurasia. Baltica was created as an entity not earlier than 1.8 billion years ago. Before this time, the three segments/continents that now comprise...

. The ocean formed in the Late Ordovician

Ordovician

The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...

 epoch, when large islands from Siberia collided with Baltica, which was now part of a minor supercontinent of Euramerica

Euramerica

Euramerica was a minor supercontinent created in the Devonian as the result of a collision between the Laurentian, Baltica, and Avalonia cratons .300 million years ago in the Late Carboniferous tropical rainforests lay over the equator of Euramerica...

. The islands also caused Ural Ocean's precursor, Khanty Ocean

Khanty Ocean

Khanty Ocean was an ancient, small ocean that existed near the end of the Precambrian time to the Silurian. It was between Baltica and the Siberian continent, with the bordering oceans of Panthalassa to the north, Proto-Tethys to the northeast, and Paleo-Tethys to the south and east...

 to close. By the Devonian

Devonian

The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

 Period, however, Ural Ocean begins to shrink because the Siberian continent and Kazakhstania

Kazakhstania

Kazakhstania, also known as the Kazakhstan Block, is a small continental region in the interior of Asia. It consists of that area north and east of the Aral Sea, south of the Siberian craton and west of the Altai Mountains and Lake Balkhash. Politically, it comprises most of Kazakhstan and has a...

 microcontinent were closing in to Baltica. In the Latest Devonian to Mississipian periods, Ural Ocean became a seaway

Seaway

Seaway is a Canadian drama series that aired on CBC from 1965 to 1966. The series was a Seaway Films production in collaboration with the UK's ATV, with production money provided by the CBC...

. Until the three collided in the Carboniferous

Carboniferous

The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...

, it created the Ural Mountains

Ural Mountains

The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...

, completely closing the ocean, and forming the Pangaea

Pangaea

Pangaea, Pangæa, or Pangea is hypothesized as a supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....

 supercontinent.

See also

• Ural Orogeny
• Panthalassic Ocean
• Proto-Tethys Ocean
  Proto-Tethys Ocean
  The Proto-Tethys Ocean was an ancient ocean that existed from the latest Ediacaran to the Carboniferous . It was an ocean predecessor of the later Paleo-Tethys Ocean. The ocean formed when Pannotia disintegrated, Proto-Laurasia rifted away from a supercontinent that would become Gondwana...
  
  
• Rheic Ocean
  Rheic Ocean
  The Rheic Ocean was a Paleozoic ocean between the large continent Gondwana to the south and the microcontinents Avalonia and others to the north...
  
  
• Indian Ocean
  Indian Ocean
  The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...