The shells are smooth, relatively flat, oval or somewhat trigonal in shape, and less than 30 mm long.

nivea Right and left valve of the same specimen: Limecola balthica is an infaunal bivalve, living buried in the mud or silt, and extending its two narrow siphons to the bottom surface.

[citation needed] Limecola balthica lives in the northern parts of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and also extends to the Subarctic both in North America and in Europe.

[5] In eastern North America, L. balthica is distributed from the Gulf of St. Lawrence Bay north to Hudson Bay, in the Pacific from Washington to the Beaufort Sea in Alaska, and also on the Russian coast.

Along the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts (Oregon to south), M. balthica is replaced by a similar species Limecola petalum.