Authors:
Tapio Lindholm
Book:
Proceedings of the 14th International Peat Congress
Venue:
Stockholm
Keywords:
aapamire, acrotelm-biomass, carbon-accumulation, friendhip-nature-reserve, holocene
Documentfile:
Lindholm 2012: Peat Increment in the Old Mires of the Green Belt of Fennoscandia in Kuhmo - Kostamus Watershed Area
Summary:
Theme I. Inventory, stratigraphy and conservation of mires and peatlands
SUMMARY
Development history of mires is important for the understanding of the present biodiversity of mires and forests as well as the consequences of the ongoing human-induced climatic change. The area of the Finnish-Russian Friendship Nature Reserve was deglaciated from the latest Valdai (Weichsel) glaciations approximately 11 000 calibrated years BP, and the formation of mires and forest vegetation started. There are old deep (up to 8 metres) mires in tectonic depressions. In flat terrain peat layers are much shallower. The peat increment varies over time periods being up to 0,8 mm/yr in the deepest mires while in the aapamires and eccentric bogs of flat terrain it is between 0,2 and 0,5 mm/yr as a mean. In the surface layer of 30-50 cm the increment appears to be much higher, but it must be pointed out that the layer is not yet real peat but decomposing plant remnants.