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Water and Carbon Cycles

Changing carbon stores in peatlands

  • 2 things to know
  • A2 Unit 3

Overview

How peat forms, roughly how fast peat accumulates and plant most associated with the building of British blanket bog.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Explain how peat forms.

Key term

Why are anaerobic conditions essential to peat formation?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is peat?

    Model answer

    Peat is partly decomposed plant material that has accumulated in waterlogged ground where a lack of oxygen has prevented it from breaking down fully.

  2. 2

    Explain how peat forms.

    Model answer

    In permanently waterlogged ground dead vegetation is submerged before it can decay, so organic matter accumulates faster than decomposers can remove it.

  3. 3

    Why are anaerobic conditions essential to peat formation?

    Model answer

    Decomposer bacteria and fungi need oxygen to respire, and standing water fills the pore spaces and excludes it, so decomposition almost stops.

  4. 4

    State roughly how fast peat accumulates.

    Model answer

    About a millimetre a year, so a metre of peat represents around a thousand years of accumulation.

  5. 5

    Name the plant most associated with the building of British blanket bog.

    Model answer

    Sphagnum moss.

  6. 6

    Why are peatlands important out of all proportion to their area?

    Model answer

    They cover only a few percent of the world's land surface yet hold roughly a third of all soil carbon.

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