The cause of peat erosion: a palaeolimnological approach

SUMMARY Palaeoecological analyses of two lake sediment cores from the Round Loch of Glenhead, Galloway, S.W. Scotland and Loch Laidon, Rannoch Moor, Central Scotland have been conducted to elucidate the cause of the observed blanket peat erosion in their catchments. Both simple physical measurements such as percentage loss on ignition and the pollen and diatom record reveal clearly the onset of peat erosion in these catchments. Accurate dating of erosion is still problematical. Nevertheless, some of the competing hypotheses that have been advanced to explain blanket peat erosion are evaluated. Acid deposition cannot be responsible for the peat erosion in these two catchments since the combined use of 210Pb and "4C dating suggests that erosion was initiated between c. AD 1500 and AD 1700, an age well before the effects of atmospheric deposition are documented by the core. However, it remains to be resolved what the effects have been of land-management changes such as grazing, burning and climatic effects, such as the Little Ice Age.

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