Nutrient-poor and acidic, a bog is a peat-accumulating wetland comprised of acidophilic vegetation, particularly Sphagnum mosses species and ericad shrubs. Although bogs are water-saturated, they have virtually no inflow or outflow of mineral-bearing water. Isolated from the groundwater table, their only source of nutrients is precipitation.
Read here. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Heavy rainfall caused minerals such as iron to be washed out or leached from the surface layers of the thin soil, in a process known as paludification. These were deposited lower down in the soil profile where they formed an impermeable layer known as an iron pan (see Figure 2). As water cannot move down through such a layer, the soil surface became waterlogged. Under these conditions the accumulation and spread of peat was made possible.
There are nice figures for explanation. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Well, I didn't, you saw me in the process of self-education :-)
My image of a peat bog was (a) a German low-land filled-up lake, or (b) a Scottish or Cornish hilltop moor (the versions I have seen personally, and the ones I read of as being used for 'atmospheric composition archeology'), so blanket bogs were a news to me. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
