An overview of the main Late Devensian glaciation of the Central Grampian Highlands

The location of the Monadhliath Mountains in the middle of the Grampian Highlands places them in a central zone with respect to ice flow pathways during the maximum extent of the last British and Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) in the Late Devensian. At the ice sheet maximum the Scottish mainland was probably entirely submerged beneath ice, which flowed north-westwards out to the continental shelf break, merging with Scandinavian ice occupying the North Sea basin (Bradwell et al., 2008). This period roughly equates with the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), 28,000-22,000 years ago (Mix et al. 2001). The most recent model of the BIIS (Clark et al., 2012) places the Monadhliath Mountains immediately to the east of the main north-south ice divide of the Scottish ice sheet, and north of a subsidiary west-east divide, centred over the East Grampian and Cairngorm mountains. Geomorphological evidence for ice streaming in the Great Glen and Spey Valley to the northeast and southwest of the Monadhliath massif indicates a general ice flow direction towards the northeast across the region, supporting this ice-divide positioning.