Peat Inventory of Minnesota

Beginning in 1975 and continuing today, there has been a renewed interest in peat for horticulture and for fuel. This interest prompted the development of the Peat Inventory Project in 1976 to outline the dimensions of major peat areas in northern Minnesota and to determine the quantity, quality, type, and depth of the peat deposits. This is the information that is stored in this database. <br/><br/>The DNR planned to utilize the inventory data for three purposes: to assess the horticultural potential of the state's resources, to assess the energy potential of the state's peatland, and to support a comprehensive state policy on peatland management. With the U.S. Department of Energy funding beginning in 1979, the DNR accelerated and expanded peat investigations in Minnesota. <br/><br/>Nine data tables, stored in one Access database, record the findings of the Peat Inventory at individual peat sites in twenty Minnesota counties. The shapefile, invsite, was created from one of these tables.<br/><br/>The first Peat Inventory report and accompanying map was published in 1979, the last report and map was published in 1982 (refer to the Associated Data Sets section for a list of these reports, listed under part 1). Recently, the reports were scanned and are available as pdf files; the accompanying published maps were scanned and rectified for use with GIS software.<br/><br/>The map legend is included on each of the scanned map images. <br/>On the peat maps, there is basic information about mineral versus peat areas, peat depths, depths of the sphagnum moss caps (i.e., raised bogs), and a differentiation of the degree of decomposition. The USDA Soil Conservation Service nomenclature is correlated with the von Post scale of decomposition in the following manner: <br/>Fibric = H1 to H3 <br/>Hemic = H4 to H6 <br/>Sapric = H7 to H10 <br/><br/>On the surficial geology maps (SW St. Louis includes both surficial geology and peat), the map legends differentiate peat versus other surficial geology units and peatland landforms.