Stratigraphy and Pollen Analysis of Southern Pennine Blanket Peats

Abstract

Few people can see severe peat erosion for the first time without a sense of astonishment, and the curious-minded will wonder why there is any peat still left when it is evidently exposed to such destructive forces. This question leads to others, such as the age of the peat beds, the date when erosion set in, the cause of erosion, the rate of it, and the nature of the surface which will be left when all the peat has vanished. Again, one may ask whether peat formation and peat erosion have alternated in a cyclic way or whether some unusual conditions are at present bringing about the destruction of long-established peat layers. Those with an interest in problems of land use will ask whether peat erosion can and should be checked or whether it should be hastened or modified in some way to give a surface with at least some small degree of productivity. These last questions are best answered by experiments, but experiments will be most fruitful if based on a sound understanding of past and present behaviour of the peat-forming vegetation. The Pennine hills have very large areas of level or slightly sloping ground at altitudes above 1500 ft. (460 m.), and on these surfaces there are probably greater expanses of deep and heavily eroded peat than can be found in any other mountain region of the British Isles. Some of the historical questions presented by this upland type of peat blanket were the subject of an investigation started in 1943. The detailed work was confined to that part of the southern Pennines within reach of Sheffield, and some of the results have already been published in a paper dealing with the Ringinglow peats (Conway, 1947). The present paper presents the rest of the data. It seemed that pollen analysis could be used to give, first, the date when peat formation began, and secondly, the date when erosion set in, a dating which might well indicate the cause of erosion. Some earlier evidence about the first of these questions was given by Woodhead & Erdtman (1926), who concluded that peat formation in the south Pennines began in 'Atlantic' times. This conclusion was brought into question by the conflicting evidence of Godwin & Clark (1934), but results later obtained from peats at Ringinglow indicated how the conflict could be resolved (Conway, 1947) and gave support to the view of Woodhead & Erdtman.