A new Late Cambrian trilobite–brachiopod fauna from the Kurchavinskaya Formation,
Severnaya Zemlya, northern Siberia, allows correlation of the Ketyi Horizon of the NW Siberian succession
with the praecursor Zone of the Baltic olenid zonation. The presence on Severnaya Zemlya of
the typically Siberian trilobite Kujandaspis ketiensis indicates that even if Severnaya Zemlya lay on a
separate plate, whether Kara or Arctida as postulated by other authors, then it was still probably not
far from Siberia. However, the associated brachiopods are partly endemic to Severnaya Zemlya, thus
giving some support to the independent palaeomagnetic evidence for their origin on a plate separate
from Siberia.