Bogs are records of human and natural history. Due to their specific chemistry, they preserve hints of our past from eras long gone.
What makes bogs such good preservers? Bogs are ombrotrophic, which means they are acidic and anoxic (lacking oxygen)¹. These conditions impede decomposition, consequently organic matter is preserved. In a sense, bogs are like giant pickle jars. Hence wooden objects, plants, and animals can be perfectly preserved in bogs.
Many curiosities have been found in discovered in these ecosystems. Bog bodies are one of the more famous cases of bog preservation. Most of these bodies are remarkably intact, for example Denmark’s Tollund man, a 2000-year-old corpse, has such an intact digestive system that his last meal was reconstructed². Another notable bog relic are pollen grains, key in documenting climate over the past centuries, reflecting the level of carbon, temperatures, and growing conditions present during different
epochs. There are even Viking ships found in several bogs³. Though bogs provide many ecosystem services such as flood control and contaminant filtering, they are also worthy of preservation as historical documents.
Ki K
The Carbon Newsprint
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