Information about Bog

A bog is a wetland type that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material. The term peat bog in common usage is not entirely redundant, although it would be proper to call these sphagnum bogs if the peat is composed mostly of acidophilic moss (peat moss or Sphagnum spp.). Lichens are a principal component of peat in the far north. Moisture is provided entirely by precipitation, and for this reason bog waters are acidic and termed ombrotrophic (or cloud-fed), which accounts for their low plant nutrient status. Excess rainfall outflows, with dissolved tannins from the plant matter giving a distinctive tan colour to bog waters. See also blackwater river.

Distribution and extent

Bogs are widely distributed in cold, temperate climes, mostly in the northern hemisphere (Boreal). The world's largest wetlands are the bogs of the Western Siberian Lowlands in Russia, which cover more than 600,000 square kilometres. Sphagnum bogs were widespread in northern Europe. Ireland was more than 15% bog; Achill Island off Ireland is 87% bog. There are extensive bogs in Canada and Alaska (called muskeg), Scotland (called mosses), the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia (20% boglands), Finland (26%), and northern Germany. There are also bogs in the Falkland Islands. Ombrotrophic wetlands - that is, bogs - are also found in the tropics, with notable areas documented in Kalimantan; these habitats are forested so would be better called swamps. Extensive bogs cover the northern areas of the U.S. states of Minnesota and Michigan, most notably on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. The pocosin of the southeastern United States is like a bog in that it is an acidic wetland but it has its own unusual combination of features. In certain areas such as Ireland and Scotland, coastal bogs are frequently intruded upon by low lying dunes called Machairs.

Bog habitats

Bogs are recognized as a significant habitat type by a number of governmental and conservation agencies. For example, the United Kingdom in its Biodiversity Action Plan establishes bog habitats as a priority for conservation. Bogs are challenging environments for plant life because they are low in nutrients and very acidic. Carnivorous plants have adapted to these conditions by using insects as a nutrient source. The high acidity of bogs and the absorption of water by sphagnum moss reduce the amount of water available for plants. Some bog plants, such as Leatherleaf, have waxy leaves to help retain moisture. Bogs also offer a unique environment for animals. For instance, English bogs give a home to the boghopper beetle and a yellow fly called the hairy canary.

Industrial uses

A bog is a very early stage in the formation of coal deposits. In fact, bogs can catch fire and often sustain long-lasting smouldering blazes, producing smoke and carbon dioxide, thus causing health and environmental problems. After drying, peat is used as a fuel. More than 20% of home heat in Ireland comes from peat, and it is also used for fuel in Finland, Scotland, Germany, and Russia. Russia is the leading producer of peat for fuel at more than 90 million metric tons per year. Ireland's Bord na Móna (peat board) was one of the first companies to mechanically harvest peat.

The other major use of dried peat is as a soil amendment (sold as moss peat or sphagnum) to increase the soil's capacity to retain moisture and enrich the soil. It is also used as a mulch. Some distilleries, notably Laphroaig, use peat fires to smoke the barley used in making scotch whisky. More than 90% of the bogs in England have been destroyed.^[1][2]

Other uses

Blueberries, cranberries, cloudberries, huckleberries, wild strawberries and lingonberries are harvested from the wild in bogs. Bog oak, wood that has been partially preserved by bogs, has been used in manufacture of furniture.

Sphagnum bogs are also used for sport, but this can be damaging. All-terrain vehicles are especially damaging to bogs. Bog snorkelling is popular in England and Wales and has even produced the associated sport of mountain bike bog snorkelling. Llanwrtyd Wells, the smallest town in Wales, hosts the World Bog Snorkeling Championships. In this event, competitors with mask, snorkel, and scuba fins swim along a 60-meter trench cut through a peat bog.

Archaeology

In parts of Denmark, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom, peat bog conditions exist where the subsurface chemistry of moisture combined with an anaerobic environment, such that remarkable preservation of animal organisms can result.^[3] Some bogs have preserved ancient oak logs useful in dendrochronology, and they have yielded extremely well-preserved bog bodies, with organs, skin, and hair intact, buried there thousands of years ago after apparent Germanic and Celtic human sacrifice. Excellent examples of such human specimens are Haraldskær Woman and Tollund Man in Denmark. In the Iron Age culture of Denmark, a discovery of several victims of ritual sacrifice by strangulation was recorded.^[4] The corpses were thrown into peat bogs where they were discovered after 2000 years, perfectly preserved down to their facial expressions, although well-tanned by the acidic environment of the Danish bogs. The Germanic culture has similarities to the characteristics of the probably Celtic Lindow man found at Lindow Common and with the Frisian culture described in the story of St. Wulfram. In Ireland, at Ceide fields in County Mayo, a 5000 year old neolithic farming landscape complete with field walls and hut sites has been found preserved under a raised blanket bog.

Fiction and song

Gothic Fiction is commonly set on a moor, a type of landscape common in Great Britain and Ireland which often has extensive bogs. One example is "The Hound of the Baskervilles", a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle which is largely set on Dartmoor and contains the fictional bog Grimpen Mire, said to have been based on Fox Tor in Devon.

"The Bog People" is a song by death metal group, Nunslaughter.

Several comic book characters are based on the idea of a half-plant/half-human creature living in a bog, notably The Heap, Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, and Solomon Grundy.

German industrial band Bigod 20 had their biggest hit with 1990s "The Bog", in which the narrator, a fell creature living within the bog or perhaps the bog itself, describes how he's swallowing the listener's body. American post-punk band be your own PET also has a song called "Bog", where the singer mentions having drowned her boyfriend in a bog.

The main character in Jethro Tull's song Aqualung "goes down to the bog and warms his feet."

One of Europe's best-known protest songs, "Peat Bog Soldiers", was written by prisoners in Nazi moorland labour camps in the Emsland and describes their penal labour in bog drainage.

Trivia

• The last Sunday in July is International Bog Day http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/index.php?section=places:events:bogday
• Bog is also a British and Irish slang word for toilet. Toilet paper is called a bog roll
• The phrase bog standard is often used to describe something that is ordinary or regular issue
• The Mysterious Bog People is a travelling museum exhibition organized by the Drents Museum, Assen, The Netherlands, the Niedersachsisches Landesmuseum, Hannover, Germany, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau-Ottawa, Canada and the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Canada
• Bog Snorkelling is a tongue-in-cheek extreme sport with competitors swimming through murky water-filled trenches cut into a bog.
• Some cultures believe that if you enter a bog all medical issues would be cured.

See also

List of bogs String bog Blanket bog Bog body Bog butter Blackwater river

Differences between bogs and other wetlands Irish Peatland Conservation Council Marsh Swamp Wetland Will-o'-the-wisp

References

[3]

External links

• Ballynahone Bog
• Black Spruce Bog Describes a forested bog type of North America