Climatic control of peat erosion in a North Wales blanket mire

Abstract

Summary This study investigates the palaeoecology of a hummock‐and‐hollow complex from a partially eroded upland blanket mire at the Migneint, north Wales, UK. Three peat cores were collected and analysed for pollen and botanical macrofossils, two for peat humification and a third was radiocarbon‐dated. In the interpretation of the palaeoecological record particular attention was paid to the ecology of the moss Racomitrium lanuginosum. We delimit two periods in the development of the hummock‐hollow complex: an earlier period of climatically controlled blanket‐mire development; and a later period of mire erosion (initiated between c. 2000 and 1350 Cal. year BP) when ‘natural’ climatically controlled mire development was modified by excessive drying of the mire surface. The data support recent studies in suggesting that the development of British blanket mires is sensitive to climate change. However, climatically controlled blanket‐mire development appears to have been pre‐empted at the Migneint by the development of the erosion‐complex, the initiation of which coincides with the zenith of an extensive deforestation during the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano‐British periods.