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Karst Valley Landscape

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Dictionary of Geotourism
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In karst areas, valleys with steep cliffs can form due to uplift during neotectonic movements and strong erosion, dissolution and gravitational collapse by water flow. This type of valley is deeper than its width and is commonly called a karst valley landform. It is characterised by steep or near-vertical walls on both sides and numerous grooves and small caves on the walls just above the water level. Based on the mode of formation, they can be divided into V-shaped valleys, gorges, box-shaped valleys and fissure-type valleys. The Three Gorges is the most famous karst valley and has a total length of 124 km. Fissure-type karst gorges are represented by the famous Tianjing Canyon in Fengjie, Chongqing City, which has a length of 6,162 m, a bottom width of 1–15 m and a vertical depth of 80–229 m (Fig. 24).

Fig. 24
figure 1124 figure 1124

Karst valley landscape – Furong River, Wulong, Chongqing

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(2020). Karst Valley Landscape. In: Chen, A., Ng, Y., Zhang, E., Tian, M. (eds) Dictionary of Geotourism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2538-0_1275

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