It’s not just what has lived and grown in peat bogs and how this has changed over time that interests Bogologists. There is also a whole range of chemical information locked into the peat that we can use to reconstruct past changes in climate and environment – we just can’t see it with a microscope!

Subtle variations in the peat’s chemistry, caused by the plants breaking down and also the changing nature of the rainfall that has ‘fed’ the bog over time, can provide important evidence about the bog’s evolution in response to changes in the world’s climate system at any given time.

Preparation for humification analysis

Preparation for stable isotopic analysis

 Follow the links to find out more about stable isotopes and humification analyses.