The Cockpit Country of Jamaica: An island within an island

Abstract

Cockpit karst landscapes are among the most distinctive and unique landscapes in the world, and have attracted attention from scientists and tourists alike from across the world and throughout recorded history. So named because of the bowl-shaped depressions resembling cock fighting arenas, its type area is the Cockpit Country in Jamaica, a rugged area dubbed terra incognita by early colonial settlers. A dramatic example of tropical karst topography, of which there are several, the Cockpit Country displays the best-developed type of cockpit karst in the world, a function of the material properties of the underlying limestone, water table depth, and tectonic setting as much as the climate in which it was formed. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.