Baltica data makes it difficult to locate the margin in the Arctic. Ordovician faunas indicate that most of Svalbard, including Bjørnøya, was part of Laurentia, but Franz Josef Land and Kvitøya (an eastern island of the Svalbard archipelago) most likely became part of Baltica in the Timanide Orogeny. The Taymyr Peninsula, in contrast, never was part of Baltica: southern Taymyr was part of Siberia whilst northern Taymyr and the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago were part of the independent Kara Terrane in the early Palaeozoic. The eastern margin, the Uralide orogen, extends from the Arctic Novaya Zemlya archipelago to the Aral Sea. The
Novaya Zemlya Russians knew of Novaya Zemlya from the 11th century, when hunters from Novgorod visited the area. For western Europeans, the search for the Northern Sea Route in the 16th century led to its exploration. The first visit from a west European was by Hugh Willoughby in 1553. Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya in 1594, and in a subsequent expedition of 1596 rounded the Northern point and wintered on the Northeast coast. (Barentsz died during the expedition, and may have been buried on the Northern island.) During a later voyage by Fyodor Litke in 1821–1824,