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.
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, such as Tollund Man, Haraldskaer Woman and Lindow Man, buried there thousands of years ago after apparent Celtic human sacrifice.
Uses of bogs
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.
These industrial uses of peat threaten the continued existence of bogs. More than 90% of the bogs in England have been destroyed.
Other uses
Crops of blueberries, cranberries and lingonberries are grown 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. 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. Current champion is Chris McGarr from Ireland.
Archaeology
In parts of Denmark, Germany 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[1]. Excellent examples of such human specimens are Haraldskaer Woman and Tollund Man in Denmark.", is a classic study of archaeology. In the Iron Age culture of Denmark, a discovery of several victims of ritual sacrifice by strangulation was recorded[2]. 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.
Fiction and song
Gothic Fiction is commonly set on a moor, a type of heath 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.
German industrial band Bigod 20 had their biggest hit with 1990's "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.
Trivia
- The phrase "bog standard" is often used to describe something that is ordinary or regular issue.
See also
References
- ^ C.M.Hogan, Haraldskaer Woman, Lumina Technologies Press, July, 2005
- ^ P.V. Glob, The Bog People: Iron Age Man Preserved
External links