Because of these two characteristics,
peat bogs are an archive of the past, like a
coded library, holding detailed and continuous
records of how past environments developed and
changed over thousands of years. These are some of
the stories the layers of peat can tell us:
Past
Environments
We can find out
about the bog vegetation and how it
changed through time because peat is made up of dead
plants that once grew on the surface of the bog and
which were preserved when they died. This has
happened since the bog first began, building up into
a thick spongy wet mass of leaf fragments, stems,
roots, seeds, wood, charcoal and bits of flowers,
like pollen. Some of these are big enough to see just
by eye (macroscopic remains) but you need a
microscope to see others. These things have helped us
to work out how the bog formed and can help
conservation workers to understand if the bog can
keep on growing if it is disturbed, like a health
check.
How raised bogs form
These pine stumps were preserved in peat and are
thousands of years old.
Pollen can also
tell us about the surrounding countryside and
landscape on dry land because pollen grains get
transported away from flowers by wind, water, insects
and other animals. This makes the pollen rain
that causes hayfever. Every year, some of this pollen
lands on bogs, where it is preserved, so pollen in
deeper, older peat, can tell us about the bog and the
landscape much further back than any written records.
People who study pollen are called pollen analysts or
palynologists.
What is pollen?
The pollen story from Greenhead Moss
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