Spirit Cave Man (9,400 years old mummy)
I'm not sure that just any swamp will produce peat. Have you ever heard of even one person in the U.S. harvesting and burning peat? It seems to be a major fuel source in northern Europe. You never hear of any "bog people" here either.
Some of the oldest 'bog people' in the world can be found in sunny Florida.
One of the oldest mummies in the world was found in a cave in Nevada, Spirit Cave Man
Bye, Bye Beringia (8,000 Year-Old Site In Florida)
*Skeletal remains of 169 people, split almost evenly between males and females, ranging from 6 to 70 years old. About 75 of the skeletons were relatively intact."
*90 intact human brains that include the oldest DNA samples in the World.
*Artifacts of wood, bone, and seed that were made into jewelry and tools, providing insight into the ancient peoples' lives.
*Tests showed the oldest skeletons were buried 8,100 years ago. The youngest was placed in the ground 6,900 years ago.
"To put this into context," Doran said, "these people had already been dead for 3,000 or 4,000 years before the first stones were laid for the Egyptian pyramids!"
Spirit Cave Man (9,400 years old mummy)
. You never hear of any "bog people" here either.
Ach, and next you'll be telling us that there aren't any
"Bong People" in Californy.
It's the Blarney stone you've been kissing, in't.
"Have you ever heard of even one person in the U.S. harvesting and burning peat?"
Yes, kind of. Link below is not to one up you, but as a child growing up in rural Illinois, I remember a peat fire in one of my uncle's fields on more than one occasion. Takes for ever to put out - just smolders - may just burn itself out. I was pretty young.
One of the links mentions harvesting peat - this search only asked for Illinois, not the US or even the Midwest.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=peat+fire+illinois&btnG=Google+Search
From: http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6944024
Because peat occurs on the surface, harvesting should have very little effect on the contour of the land.^In fact, productive land would be created for crops, trees, wildlife habitats, and lakes and ponds.^
It is estimated that U.S. reserves would yield about 120 billion tons of peat (on the basis of 35 weight percent moisture content).^The energy available from these reserves is estimated to be about 1440 quads (10/sup 15/ Btu), which is equivalent to 240 billion barrels of oil.^Among fossil fuels, this is exceeded only by the energy potential of U.S. coal resources.^
About 90 percent of the reserves are located in Alaska (61.7 billion tons), Minnesota (16.5 billion tons), Michigan (10.3 billion tons), Florida (6.9 billion tons), Wisconsin (6.4 billion tons), Louisiana (4.1 billion tons), and North Carolina (2.7 billion tons).