Studies of peat as the input to coalification, II. Sampling sites and preliminary fractionation

Abstract

Five investigational sites in the Florida Everglades and Okefenokee Swamp have been selected in which the present vegetational cover includes a gymnosperm and various monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous angiosperms, and cores have been obtained that represent complete profiles from surface to underlying inorganic sediment. Since previous methods of fractionating peat were regarded as unsatisfactory for various reasons, a purely mechanical technique has been used in which organized plant tissue is separated from fine-grained humic matter by slurrying the peat samples in an excess of water and passing the slurry through standard 20 and 80 mesh sieves. Microscopic examination confirms that the coarse fraction consists of fragments of tissue and organs, though not all such fragments can be assigned to a specific source plant. Fragments of roots or rhizomes tend to dominate. Peats from sites in the proximity of saline waters have high sulfur contents (3–5%), most of the sulfur being combined with the organic matter. Nitrogen contents are high, most probably due to the presence of abundant amino acids condensed with the insoluble organic matter.