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National Geographic : 1987 Mar
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Finnish, Suomi. More than half of Finland's 25 million acres of peatland have been drained for forestry. Mature pine, spruce, and birch forests will develop on these nutrient-rich peatlands in less than 50 years. In northern Finland, peatlands are used mainly-as they have been for hundreds of years-for reindeer husbandry, berry pick ing, and grouse shooting. Here, as in north ern regions of Canada, Alaska, and the Soviet Union, a lens of permafrost some times forms in the bogs, pushing the peat into cones or strange amoeba-like hum mocks called palsas. Palsas 30 feet high have been reported in central Siberia. Finland's use of peat as a fuel is minor, but government research is aimed at increasing it to meet close to 10 percent of the country's energy needs in the next decade. With new techniques the peat can be taken off the bog as a wet slurry and then pumped to a processing plant to be dried by means of compression or suction. "If we can make this system economically feasible," said Timo Nyronen, director of research and development for the state managed fuel center, "it will be an impor tant breakthrough in the peat industry. We will be able to guarantee peak supplies with out worrying about the weather. And, we can get peat from areas around the world where ditching is now impossible or deposits are too shallow." Peat seems to be following the course of crude oil, which is fractionated and refined into a host of valuable by-products. In a factory near Minsk the Russians are produc ing mineral wax from peat to be used in leather polishes, crayons, and plastics. They also make a cream from peat for the treat ment of eczema, ulcers, and burns, and an eye medication that they claim can reduce Sacrifices in the mysterious bog by the Bronze Age and IronAge people of Denmark were often buried with ritual offerings. Datingfrom about 1400 B.C., a bronze horse pulling a gilded disk (left) may be a miniatureversion of a ceremonialwagon used in a solar fertility cult. Worship later centered on the earth mother. A bronze neck ring from 600 B.C. (below) resembles torques found on statues of the goddess. Peat also preserves pollen grains that help date bog artifacts. Mysteries of the Bog 415
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