Peatland pools are tightly coupled to the contemporary carbon cycle.

Peatlands are globally important stores of soil carbon (C) formed over millennial timescales but are at risk of destabilization by human and climate disturbance. Pools are ubiquitous features of many peatlands and can contain very high concentrations of C mobilized in dissolved and particulate organic form and as the greenhouses gases carbon dioxide (CO ) and methane (CH ). The radiocarbon content ( C) of these aquatic C forms tells us whether pool C is generated by contemporary primary production or from destabilized C released from deep peat layers where it was previously stored for millennia.