Command of the sea Great Britain accepted the principle in 1805; Russia, in 1824; and the United States (tacitly) in 1894. Many treaties, including the Treaty of Versailles, have dealt with the open seas, and currently the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea formalizes this freedom. Historically, many powers attempted to extend command of the sea into peacetime, imposing taxes or other restrictions on shipping using areas of open sea. For example, Venice claimed the Adriatic, and exacted a heavy toll from vessels navigating its northern waters. Genoa and France each claimed portions of the western Mediterranean. Denmark and Sweden claimed
Geology of the Baltic Sea East European Craton millions of years after it consolidated. This occurred during the Late Ediacaran and the Early Cambrian when the weakest part of the craton was reactivated. Since then the basin has been deepened mainly through subsidence caused by extensional tectonics. In the northern part of the Baltic Sea basin, including the Gulf of Bothnia and the Bothnian Sea, the depression originated as a series of interconnected rifts that were not active enough to split the East European Craton. Subsidence in the southern parts was most pronounced during a period starting in the Late Ordovician and lasting to Middle