The geology of Russia, the world's largest country, which extends over much of northern Eurasia, consists of several stable cratons and sedimentary platforms bounded by orogenic (mountain) belts.
European Russia is on the East European craton, at the heart of which is a complex of igneous and metamorphic rocks dating back to the Precambrian. The craton is bounded on the east by the long tract of compressed and highly deformed rock that constitutes the Ural orogen. In Asiatic Russia, the area between the Ural Mountains and the Yenisei River is the young West Siberian Plain. East of the Yenisei River is the ancient Central Siberian Plateau, extending to the Lena River. East of the Lena River there is the Verhoyansk-Chukotka collision zone, stretching to the Chukchi Peninsula.
The orogens within Russia belong to the Baltic Shield, the Timanides, the Urals, the Altai Mountains, the Ural-Mongolian epipaleozoic orogen and the northwestern part of the Pacific orogeny. The country's highest mountains, the Caucasus, are confined to younger orogens.