Peat initiation in the Faroe Islands : climate change, pedogenesis or human impact?

• Published in: Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
• Main Authors: Lawson, Ian T., Church, Mike J., Edwards, Kevin J., Cook, Gordon T., Dugmore, Andrew J.
• Other Authors: University of St Andrews. Geography & Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews. Bell-Edwards Geographic Data Institute
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: Blanket peat; Holocene; Norse; Pollen; Radiocarbon; Blanket mire formation; Human settlement; Radiocarbon calibration; Lateral expansion; Landscape change; Western Norway; Early holocene; Vegetation; Sediments; GE Environmental Sciences; SDG 13 - Climate Action; GE; Faroe Islands; Norway; Sandoy; Faroes
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/5982; https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755691007000035

As an isolated island group lying off the NW. European mainland which was uninhabited until the mid-first millennium AD, the Farces offer a unique opportunity to study natural processes of Holocene ecosystem development in a region where anthropogenic activity is usually a complicating factor. In this paper new radiocarbon dates and pollen-analytical data from the island of Sandoy, in the centre of the Farces archipelago, are presented. Together with existing pollen and plant macrofossil records, these data allow a reconstruction of patterns of Holocene vegetational and edaphic change. Basal peat dates indicate that large areas of blanket mire were established long before the first human settlement, demonstrating conclusively that human impact is not necessary for the development of such ecosystems. The timing of the initiation of the blanket peats varies markedly, both across the Faroes as a whole and at a landscape scale, with dates distributed evenly over 9000 years. This suggests that, in the Faroes at least, pedogenesis was more important than climatic change in determining the timing of the spread of blanket peat systems. Postprint Peer reviewed