peatland

Swamps may be considered spooky, but is there more than meets the eye?

Simon Clark October 30, 2023

Credit: Original image by Vitalie Petra

Swamps are spooky. This is the prevailing notion from the depiction of wetlands – the saturated lands of swamps, bogs, and fens – in the media. From the folktales of Will-o’-the-Wisps guiding travellers astray to the many, many swamp monsters of Scooby Doo, the sign is clear: a scrawled “stay away from here” thrust deep in the mud, writ by centuries of storytellers. As a reputation it’ ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: The unique bogs of Patagonia

Klaus-Holger Knorr October 9, 2017

Oceanic ombrotrophic peatland at the Seno Skyring Fjord, Patagonia, Chile . Credit: Klaus-Holger Knorr (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu).

Patagonia, the region in southernmost tip of South America, is as diverse as it is vast. Divided by the Andes, the arid steppes, grasslands and deserts of Argentina give way to the temperate rainforests, fjords and glaciers of Chile. Also on the Chilean side are rolling hills and valleys of marshy topography: Patagonia’s bogs. Today, Klaus-Holger Knorr, a researcher at the University of Münster’s ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Curl up under a peat blanket

Sara Mynott August 19, 2013

Rannoch Moor is the largest area of unbroken (no houses, no roads) blanket bog in the United Kingdom. Blanket bogs – as their name suggests – blanket the ground in an extensive layer of peat. They form in regions where there is high rainfall and comparatively little evapotranspiration. These waterlogged conditions are found throughout much of the northern hemisphere, and allow blanket bogs to form ...[Read More]