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C. Peatlands as multi-signal archives of

environmental changes

Section C considers peatlands as archives of important data that are potentially

useful in recording the details of past-environmental (including climatic) changes,
especially over the last 10,000 years or so (Chapter 18). As such, they complement
similar data from archives such as lake sediments and soils. The record imprinted in
mires of pre-historical and historical human activities are examined (Chapters 17, 20,
21) mainly through the analysis of mercury and lead. Chapter 20 looks at the pos-
sibility that mercury may be mobilized in a peatland, so that caution must be ex-
ercised in making the assumption that analysis of a given proxy element gives values
that have been unmodified since deposition.