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in color and moderately well decomposed with the fibers being composed
mainly of the woody materials of stems and very fine roots .
The
unrubbed fiber content (particles less than 0 .15 mm thick) of the
forest peat material is about 60 percent and is
usually base saturated,
medium acid to neutral (pH 5 .9 to 7 .3) . The matrix is fairly dense ;
the bulk density is
usually greater than 0 .1 gm/cm3 and becomes
greater with increasing depth .
Three subtypes of forest peats were
separated, based on the dominance of the plant material,
and these
are :
A .l :
Woody-Forest Peat
A.2 : Feather Moss-Forest Peat
A.3 : Cladonia-Forest Peat
B .
Sphagnum Peat
This type of peat material develops on very wet to wet bogs
(Tarnocai, 1970) . This peat material is primarily derived from
stunted black spruce-Sphagnum-Ledum ,
Sphagnum-Ledum and Sphagnum types
of vegetation .
The dominant peat-former among these vegetation types
is Sphagnum with minor components of feathermosses and stems and
leaves of ericaceous shrubs . This peat material may contain woody
intrusive materials such as roots and stems of black spruce .
Sphagnum
peat is usually undecomposed (fibric), light yellowish-brown to very
pale brown in color and loose and spongy in consistency with the entire
Sphagnum plant being readily identified .
The unrubbed fiber content
is approximately 95 percent and the peat is extremely acid (pH