Siberia and Laurentia were independent Silurian continents that accumulated extensive carbonate deposits on broad epicontinental shelves attached to limited land areas. Siberian Anabar was a domed lowland, but Taconia in eastern North America was an elongate highland thrust up as a result of oceanic foreshortening in the Proto-Atlantic. Both lands shed quartzitic detritus into coastal environments, permitting accurate map reconstructions of their shorelines. The greater topographic relief of Taconia sheltered the inboard carbonate platform from the most severe storms, but Anabar stood in the direct path of hurricanes that swept across the flanking carbonate shelf and stimulated deposition of cyclic storm beds. During the middle Aeronian and early Telychian, Siberia was imprinted by two global highstands in sea level that can be well correlated to Laurentia and other paleocontinents, such as Avalonia and Baltica, on the basis of stratigraphic discontinuities in beds with rich concentrations of the brachiopod Pentamerus oblongus. An earlier highstand recorded by widespread distribution of the brachiopod Virgiana decussata in North America is masked by a prolonged Rhuddanian deepening event on Siberia. Thicker Silurian deposits in Siberia as opposed to North America and especially Siberia's extensive Rhuddanian shales and interbedded fine limestones, attributed to a deep-shelf setting, may be explained by comparatively low hypsography.