What Is a Peat Moss Bog?

What Peat Moss Bogs Are Made Of

• Peat moss bogs consists of dead plants that have piled on top of each other for thousands of years. Bogs are composed primarily of sphagnum moss, a genus of plants with 150 to 300 species. When plants accumulate in water-logged areas, they do not decompose completely because decomposition depends on aerobic, or oxygen-breathing, bacteria and fungi. A bog is an anaerobic environment where the bacteria and fungi necessary to decompose plants cannot thrive.

Bog Structure

• Bogs are 90 percent water and 10 percent solids; in fact, they have fewer solids than whole milk. The huge volume of water is held within the dead cells of Sphagnum moss. A peat moss bog has a thick (sometimes hundreds of feet) base of partially rotted plant material and a thin (about 10 inches deep) surface of living sphagnum moss, heather, other mosses and grasses. The top layer is called the acrotelm and living sphagnum moss gives it its red, yellow and ochre color. The lower layer is known at the catotelm and is made up of dead, partially decomposed plant material. It is dark chocolate brown in color and can be as much as 50 feet deep.

How Peat Moss Bogs Form

• Terrestrialization is one way bogs form. A water body, such as a lake or pond, slowly fills with sediment. Plant and animal life in the water dies and settles to the bottom of the water body until the lake or pond is filled with a soupy soil. This swamp is the first stage in the formation of bogs. Under these conditions, sphagnum moss thrives, dying layer by layer to form the bog. The other way bogs form is called paludification. In this process, the ground becomes super saturated with water, which encourages the growth of sphagnum moss. The bog forms as the moss dies and fails to decompose entirely.

Uses of Peat Moss

• Peat moss is harvested from bogs and used for a variety of purposes. The most common use for peat moss in the U.S. is to improve garden soil by increasing its moisture-retention capacity and by adding organic nutrients and acidity. However, it has several other important uses as well. Dried peat moss has been used for surgical dressings, diapers, lamp wick and bedding (litter) for animals housed in stables. Dried peat moss has also been used extensively as a fuel. Florists use it as a packing material. Peat moss can help control erosion. Drained peat bogs are used as agricultural land.