Monodromy and vanishing cycles for sufficiently ample linear systems on simply connected surfaces

We compute the mapping class group-valued monodromy of any sufficiently ample linear system on any smooth simply connected projective surface, identifying this with the r-spin mapping class group associated to a maximal root of the adjoint line bundle. This gives a characterization of the simple closed curves that can arise as vanishing cycles for nodal degenerations in the linear system, as well as other corollaries concerning discriminants, Lefschetz fibrations, and surfaces in 4-manifolds.