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Fission-track thermochronology has been applied to apatite, zircon and titanite from various depths of the Baltic Shield. Burial due to Sveconorwegian (Grenville) and Caledonian foreland sedimentation is revealed. Titanite and zircon fission-track ages from surface samples (from eastern Sweden) do not vary significantly and average ∼ 850 Myr. It is suggested that Sveconorwegian sediments reached a thickness of at least 8 km in eastern Sweden. Exhumation of these sediments was succeeded by deposition of Lower Palaeozoic cover rocks. Apatite fission-track ages along a transect from SW to NE across the shield, increase from ∼ 300 Myr to ∼ 900 Myr and yield the Phanerozoic history of subsidence and exhumation. Apatite fission tracks, in the basement of the thickest parts of the foreland basin, were totally annealed. These results suggest a > 600 km wide Caledonian foreland basin filled by Devonian sediments that were > 2.5 km thick in southern and western Sweden, thinning to the east (in Finland). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]