I photograph the plants I find in a bog.
"There's something magic about it,"
says Jim Murphy. I’d have to agree. Murphy lives in Kilkishen, Ireland. He burns turf as fuel to heat his home.
What’s turf? Turf is a material made up of decaying plants. It is also called peat. In Ireland, peat comes from raised or blanket bogs. These cover 20 percent of the country. I’m Emily Toner, a soil geographer. I study bogs.
A bog is a wetland made from water and plants. A healthy bog adds one meter of soil every one thousand years. It is a rich and acidic soil.
Walking on a bog feels like “walking on water.” That’s because bogs hold water. Sphagnum moss in bogs holds up to 20 times its weight in water.
Bogs hold more than just plants and water. They also absorb carbon dioxide from the air. This reduces the greenhouse effect on Earth.
How? Carbon dioxide traps heat. Too much of this greenhouse gas can cause Earth’s temperatures to rise.
This is a bouquet of bog mosses I collected from one bog.
a close-up look at sphagnum moss
Storing Carbon
Bogs trap carbon and keep it in place. That helps keep Earth’s temperatures steady. That’s why wetlands are called carbon sinks. They store twice the carbon that’s held in forests.
Throughout history, people in Ireland have relied on bogs for survival. Wild berries and other plants can provide food. Sphagnum moss was once used to make bandages for wounds. And peat cut into bricks to burn as fuel is still a widely used resource.
Sadly, most of Ireland’s bogs have shrunk. People drain the land and use it for other purposes, such as farming.
EUROPE
Atlantic
Ocean
Ireland
Atlantic
Ocean
Irish Sea
Where the Bogs Are
Ireland
How Raised Bogs Form
A common type of bog in Ireland is a raised bog. They began to form after the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Hollows scraped out by glaciers filled with water. They formed small lakes.
lake
How Raised Bogs Form
On the edges of each lake, plants grew. These included reeds, sedges, grasses, and wildflowers. As they died, they began to fill up the lake.
dead plants
How Raised Bogs Form
As the dead plants piled up, they created a spongy mat called a fen.
fen
How Raised Bogs Form
Over time, the fen thickened. Plant roots at the surface no longer made contact with the groundwater. The water in the lake became more acidic.
fen plants
How Raised Bogs Form
Mosses can survive in acidic conditions. So, they took over. They grew above the surface of the lake. They replaced the other plants. This is a raised bog.
moss