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0.19 and 0.53 mm per year, indicating that Colorado peatlands may <br />be among the slower accreting. <br />Radiocarbon dating has been used to determine peatland age <br />and accretion rate. Flemming (1966) found that a "bog" in the <br />Medicine Bow Mountains of Wyoming had an age of 3800 +/- 300 <br />years. Cooper (personal communication 1990) has found that some <br />Rocky Mountain peatlands in Colorado are as old as 10,000 years, <br />and accrete at a rate of 20 cm per 1,000 years. Radiocarbon <br />dating of the peatlands examined in this study was conducted by <br />Dr. David Cooper of the Colorado School of Mines. Unfortunately, <br />the analysis of that data will not be completed until the spring <br />of 1990, and therefore is not discussed here. <br />Generally, disturbance and removal of the accumulated <br />organic residues by erosion and other natural processes is <br />minimal and occurs only infrequently (although fire is often a <br />natural component of peatlands). For this reason peatlands are <br />rarely found in association with high energy stream systems, <br />although they may share a common ground water table (Windell et <br />al. 1986). <br />Stratification of the peat column occurs with time as the <br />deeper residues gradually become more completely decomposed. The <br />material in the entire column is divided into the active surface <br />zone and the humified sub - surface zone. These zones are <br />classified by the fiber content of the material in them, and are <br />composed of either fibric, hemic, and sapric layers. The active <br />layer consists solely of fibric material, and may extend downward <br />4 0 <br />