The Belomorian Province (also known as Belomorian Terrane, Belomorian Domain, Belomorian orogen, and Belomorides) is an area of the

Fennoscandian Shield The Baltic Shield (or Fennoscandian Shield) is a segment of the Earth's crust belonging to the East European Craton, representing a large part of Fennoscandia, northwestern Russia and the northern Baltic Sea. It is composed mostly of Archean and ...

spanning the parts of the

Republic of Karelia The Republic of Karelia (russian: Респу́блика Каре́лия, Respublika Kareliya; ; krl, Karjalan tašavalta; ; fi, Karjalan tasavalta; vep, Karjalan Tazovaldkund, Ludic: ''Kard’alan tazavald''), also known as just Karelia (ru ...

and

Murmansk Oblast Murmansk Oblast (russian: Му́рманская о́бласть, p=ˈmurmənskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ, r=Murmanskaya oblast, ''Murmanskaya oblast''; Kildin Sami: Мурман е̄ммьне, ''Murman jemm'ne'') is a federal subject (an oblast) o ...

Northwest Russia Northwest Russia, or the Russian North is the northern part of western Russia. It is bounded by Norway, Finland, the Arctic Ocean, the Ural Mountains and the east-flowing part of the Volga. The area is roughly coterminous with the Northwestern F ...

. The province is named after the Russian name for the

White Sea The White Sea (russian: Белое море, ''Béloye móre''; Karelian and fi, Vienanmeri, lit. Dvina Sea; yrk, Сэрако ямʼ, ''Serako yam'') is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is s ...

.Sorjonen-Ward & Luukkonen 2005, p. 22. The main rock types are

orthogneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

(derived from the tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite association), greenstone and

paragneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

. Although these rocks formed in the

Mesoarchean The Mesoarchean (, also spelled Mesoarchaean) is a geologic era in the Archean Eon, spanning , which contains the first evidence of modern-style plate subduction and expansion of microbial life. The era is defined chronometrically and is no ...

and

Neoarchean The Neoarchean (; also spelled Neoarchaean) is the last geologic era in the Archean eon that spans from 2800 to 2500 million years ago—the period being defined chronometrically and not referencing a specific level in a rock section on Eart ...

, they were disturbed by tectonic movements and heat 1900–1800 million years ago in the

Paleoproterozoic The Paleoproterozoic Era (;, also spelled Palaeoproterozoic), spanning the time period from (2.5–1.6 Ga), is the first of the three sub-divisions ( eras) of the Proterozoic Eon. The Paleoproterozoic is also the longest era of the Earth's ...

. Located between the Kola and Karelian domains the

collision In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great fo ...

of these two blocks would have caused the disturbance.Sorjonen-Ward & Luukkonen 2005, p. 24. According to one view the Belomorian Province could just be a more metamorphosed part of the Karelian Province to the west.

References

;Bibliography * {{Geology of Fennoscandia Archean geology Geography of the Republic of Karelia Geography of Murmansk Oblast Geology of European Russia Paleoproterozoic orogenies Proterozoic Europe