Mollands

Also within

Stirling and Falkirk County LochLomond National Park National Park

Condition (NatureScot)

Geology & landscape

Geological Feature: Moraine

Landscape processes: Glacial

Description

Mollands Mollands SSSI is located 1 km south of the town of Callander, in central Scotland. It is a key locality in a network of sites where pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating of sediments have been used to constrain the timing and extent of the last phase of glaciation in Scotland. The pollen record has also been used to reconstruct vegetational, and hence climatic, changes following glaciation. Mollands SSSI and the nearby Tynaspirit SSSI are two sites located respectively inside and outside a large end moraine (a glacially formed ridge of loose debris marking the maximum limit of a glacier). Comparing the evidence from sediments at both of these sites demonstrates that the so called ‘Callander Moraine’ was formed during the Loch Lomond Stadial, a period of colder temperatures and glacier readvance which occurred around 12,900-11,500 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age. Sediments began to accumulate in the kettle-hole basin at Mollands after the retreat of the ice, and the base of the sediment sequence has been radiocarbon dated, indicating that the last glaciers disappeared from the Teith Valley before 11,500 years ago.