[6] Shatsky, however, was a "fixist" and, erroneously, explained the presence of Precambrian and Paleozoic metamorphic rocks on the New Siberian, Wrangel, and De long Islands with subduction.

"Mobilists", on the other hand, also erroneously, proposed that North America had rifted from Eurasia and that the Arctic basins had opened behind a retreating Alaska.

[10] The current geological structure of the Arctic Region is the result of tectonic processes during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic (250 Ma to present) when the Amerasian and Eurasian basins formed, but the presence of Precambrian metamorphic complexes discovered in the 1980s indicated a continent once existed between Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia.

[11] In the reconstruction of Metelkin, Vernikovsky & Matushkin 2015, Arctica originally formed as a continent during the Tonian 950 Ma and became part of the supercontinent Rodinia.

During this period the configuration of Arctica changed and the continent moved from near the Equator to near the North Pole while keeping its position between three major cratons: Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia.