Earth around 520 million years ago – Cambrian

The location of southern Britain is marked by the red cross. The latitude is around 60 degrees south of the Equator, a location somewhere along the northern edge of the huge Gondwana plate, which is splitting apart, to give rise to three large plates, Laurentia (far left in diagram), Baltica (centre) and Siberia. The Avalonian plate (which will southern Britain and Ireland has not yet rifted away from Gondwana, that occurs in the early Ordovician around 475 million years ago.