The peatland in the Congo Basin holds  about 30 billion metric tons of Carbon which is roughly equivalent to two decades of fossil fuel emissions in the United States.

The peat, which consists of slowly decomposing vegetation in swamp forests, has been accumulating for more than 10 000 years.

It stretches from the Democratic Republic of Congo into the Central African Republic.

Author of a study published in the journal Nature. Simon Lewis. says it’s astonishing that in 2017 these kinds of discoveries can be made.

Lewis, a professor at the University of Leeds, worked  on a hunch that he’d find peat in the wetlands known as the Cuvette Centrale.

The vegetation, which is waterlogged year-round, lacks oxygen and other nutrients that would lead to its quick decomposition.

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