Blanket bog or
blanket mire is an area of
peatPeat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. Peat forms in wetlandbogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests...
land, forming where there is a
climateClimate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time...
of high
rainRain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to other kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. On Earth, it is the condensation of atmospheric water vapor into drops heavy enough to fall, often making it to the surface...
fall and a low level of
evapotranspirationEvapotranspiration is a term used to describe the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the Earth's land surface to atmosphere. Evaporation accounts for the movement of water to the air from sources such as the soil, canopy interception, and waterbodies...
, allowing
peatPeat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. Peat forms in wetlandbogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests...
to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses of undulating ground. The blanketing of the ground with a variable depth of peat gives the habitat type its name. Blanket bogs are found extensively throughout the
northern hemisphereThe Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator—the word hemisphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
- well-studied examples are found in
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
and
BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
, but vast areas of the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n and
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
n
tundraIn physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes from Kildin Sami tūndâr, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract." There are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra...
also qualify as blanket bogs.
Blanket bog or
blanket mire is an area of
peatPeat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. Peat forms in wetlandbogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests...
land, forming where there is a
climateClimate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time...
of high
rainRain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to other kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. On Earth, it is the condensation of atmospheric water vapor into drops heavy enough to fall, often making it to the surface...
fall and a low level of
evapotranspirationEvapotranspiration is a term used to describe the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the Earth's land surface to atmosphere. Evaporation accounts for the movement of water to the air from sources such as the soil, canopy interception, and waterbodies...
, allowing
peatPeat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. Peat forms in wetlandbogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests...
to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses of undulating ground. The blanketing of the ground with a variable depth of peat gives the habitat type its name. Blanket bogs are found extensively throughout the
northern hemisphereThe Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator—the word hemisphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
- well-studied examples are found in
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
and
BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
, but vast areas of the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n and
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
n
tundraIn physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes from Kildin Sami tūndâr, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract." There are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra...
also qualify as blanket bogs. In the
southern hemisphereThe Southern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is south of the equator—the word hemisphere literally means 'half ball'...
they are less well-developed due to the relatively low
latitudeLatitude, usually denoted by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the imaginary horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps that run either north or south of the equator...
s of the main land areas, though similar environments are reported in
PatagoniaPatagonia is a geographic region containing the southernmost portion of South America. Located in Argentina and Chile, it comprises the southernmost portion of the Andes mountains to the west and south, and plateaux and low plains to the east. The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by...
, the
Falkland IslandsThe Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located approximately from the coast of mainland South America, from mainland Antarctica, and from Africa. There are two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, as well as 776 smaller islands...
and
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
. It is debatable if the extremely impoverished plant faunas of
Antarctica| style="border-top:solid 1px #ccd2d9; padding:0.4em 1em 0.4em 0; vertical-align:top;" | 14,000,000 km
2 280,000 km
2 13,720,000 km
2 |-! style="border-top: solid 1px #ccd2d9; padding: 0.4em 1em 0.4em 0; vertical-align: top;...
are sufficiently well developed to be considered as blanket bogs.
In many areas the peat is cultivated as a
fossil fuelFossil fuels or mineral fuels are fuels formed by natural resources such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
and used either in electricity generation or domestic solid fuel for heating. In the
Republic of IrelandIreland is a country in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921. It is a parliamentary democracy and a republic...
a state owned agency,
Bord na MónaBord na Móna , abbreviated BnaM, is a semi-state company in Ireland, created in 1946 by the Turf Development Act 1946. The company is responsible for the mechanised harvesting of peat, primarily in the Midlands of Ireland...
, controls a lot of the blanket bogs and harvests peat for
electricity generationElectricity generation is the process of creating electricity from other forms of energy.The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday...
.
Some blanket bogs are now preserved by government organisations in both Ireland and Britain, as this habitat is now under threat from extensive harvesting. Examples of protected blanket bogs include
Sliabh BeaghSliabh Beagh are mountains which straddle the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and specifically County Fermanagh, County Monaghan and County Tyrone...
and
Airds MossAirds Moss is a moor in East Ayrshire, between the rivers Ayr and Lugar.Its blanket bogs have caused it to be designated as a Special Area of Conservation....
.