| Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. Peat forms in wetlands or peatlands, variously called bogs, moors, muskegs, mires, tropical swamp forests and fens.Peat deposits are found in many places around the world, notably in Russia, Ireland, Scotland, northern Germany and Scandinavia, and in North America, principally in Canada, Michigan and the Florida Everglades. In Beauchene Island, it forms at around ten times the rate of anywhere else in the world. The process by which it forms is not known.The majority (around 80%) of peatlands are found in high latitudes; approximately 60% of the world's wetlands are peat. Peatlands cover a total of around 3% of global land mass or 3,850,000 to 4,100,000 kmē. About 7% of this total has been exploited for agriculture and forestry, with significant environmental repercussions. Under proper conditions, peat will turn into lignite coal over geologic periods of time.Peat forms when plant material, usually in marshy areas, is inhibited from decaying fully by acidic conditions. It is composed mainly of peat moss or sphagnum, but may also include other marshland vegetation: trees, grasses, fungi, as well as other types of organic remains, such as insects, and animal corpses. Under certain conditions the decomposition of the latter ones in the absence of oxygen is inhibited, and archaeology often takes an advantage of this. Peat layer growth and degree of decomposition (or humification) depends principally on its composition and on the degree of waterlogging. Peat formed in very wet conditions will grow considerably faster, and be less decomposed, than that in drier places. This allows climatologists to use peat as an indicator of climatic change. The composition of peat can also be used to reconstruct ancient ecologies by examining the types and quantities of its organic elements. Under the right conditions, peat is the earliest stage in the formation of coal. Most modern peat bogs formed in high latitudes after the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age some 9,000 years ago. They usually grow slowly, at the rate of about a millimetre per year. Published for Joseph Meyer Meyers Konversations |
