Characteristic Mid-Atlantic Wetland Type - Peat Bogs

Peat bog. Credit: Virginia Dept. of Env'l Quality

Humid environments with saturated, anoxic (without oxygen) soils produce peat when organic matter accumulates faster than the matter can decompose. On the Atlantic coast, vegetation began contributing organic matter to soil roughly 9,000 years ago following the last glaciers there. In favorable environments, peat bogs slowly formed and began storing nitrogen and carbon from plant life and mercury from precipitation. Peat bogs are characterized by high water tables fed by precipitation, acidic water, low levels of nutrients and minerals, fragile and seemingly stunted trees, and sphagnums and other mosses. They can host the rare Atlantic white cedar, a tree found only in isolated bogs in a less than 200-mile stretch of coast along the eastern and southern seaboards of the United States.