the.com/peat
compressed swamp time, hoarding carbon for millennia until someone burns it for whisky
means Partly decayed plant matter that accumulates in waterlogged bogs, cut and dried to burn as fuel or used in gardening and whisky-making.
from From late Medieval Latin 'peta,' meaning a piece of turf cut for fuel, which passed into English. Beyond that the trail goes cold and boggy — it may have Celtic roots, possibly a cousin of words tied to 'piece' or 'bit,' but scholars don't agree, fittingly for a substance dug out of uncertain ground.
- slow growth
- accumulates about one millimeter per year
- bog bodies
- preserves ancient corpses with skin and faces intact
- carbon vault
- stores more carbon than all forests combined
- whisky soul
- its smoke gives Islay scotch that peaty bite
- fuel history
- dried and burned for warmth across Ireland and Scotland
blanket bog of scotland — covers ~2 million hectares in the highlands and moorlands, storing more carbon than all forests combined
everglades peat deposits — florida wetland peat layers up to 3.6 meters deep, formed over 5,000 years
siberian permafrost peat — western siberia holds ~70 billion tons of peat, thawing and releasing methane since 2000s
irish peat bogs — cover 3% of ireland's land surface, historically harvested by turf cutting for fuel