A glacial geological and geomorphological map of the far NW Highlands, Scotland. Part 1

Abstract

Please click here to download the map associated with this article. The “Glacial geological and geomorphological map of the NW Highlands, Scotland” is the result of detailed aerial photograph interpretation and field mapping at a scale of 1: 25,000 and presents the distribution of glacial deposits and landforms in an area of ca. 1000 km2 in the far NW Scottish Highlands (58°5″N 4°58″W to 58°29″N 4°34″W; British National Grid: NC 250140 to NC 500 540). This area has never been mapped in detail before, and previous glacier reconstructions have solely been carried out from aerial photographs without much ground-truthing. The present mapping reveals that glacial landforms, most notably recessional “hummocky” moraines attributed to the Younger Dryas (ca. 12.7-11.5 ka BP), are more widely distributed throughout the study area than recognised on earlier overview maps. Detailed mapping enables the detailed reconstruction of part of a large mountain icefield of ca. 211 km2 which is significantly larger than the 36 km2 previously envisaged for the NW Highlands. These findings demonstrate that “traditional” mapping from aerial photographs and in the field can result in a high-resolution reconstruction of palaeo-glaciers from which palaeoclimatic variables can then be calculated. Such variables are crucial to validate and further constrain numerical models used to predict future climate change.