January 2019
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In this chapter, notable glaciokarsts of the world are presented. Geographical location, geologic and tectonic settings, climatic conditions, glaciation phases as well as surface and underground karst landforms are presented about each selected region. Obviously, the areal extent, the degree of exploration and the amount of publicly available information are different in each case. Historically, the first glaciokarst studies were based on the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Dinaric Alps and the British Isles, and they have remained in the focus since then. Hence, these regions are presented here in more detail, but even these presentations can be considered only short overviews. Some other glaciokarst terrains, such as Scandinavia or the Rocky Mountains, have also been thoroughly studied but later in history; nevertheless, there are abundant internationally available publications about them. Certain parts of the Balkan Peninsula, the Apennines or even Anatolia received high attention more recently and novel methods have been used to investigate their glaciokarst terrains. The Carpathians and the Appalachians, which are also discussed in this chapter, are extensively studied mountains in general, but glaciokarsts occupy a relatively small proportion in them. On the other hand, there are still regions, which are difficult to access, where glaciokarsts are poorly explored, and/or the available literature is limited (or the publications are only in Russian, for instance). Some of them, namely, the Altai Mountains, the Greater Caucasus, the Tian Shan, the Pamir and the Patagonian archipelago, are also briefly presented here. Finally, it is noted that our selection does not contain all glaciokarsts of the world because it is beyond the scope of this chapter.