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Inland Whirlpools (Rivers; Lakes; etc.)

kamalktk

Antediluvian
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I didn't find a whirlpool thread, but I guess this is probably a sinkhole that opened under the water.

 
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A strong maelstrom once was off the cost of one of the Faroese Islands. I catalogue rare book, manuscripts and maps and remembered that because I catalogued this map a few years ago:

http://www.vintage-maps.com/en/Antique- ... ::993.html

And a hand-colored version here:
http://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMa ... bowen-1747

Allison

Edit: For archival purposes, here's an image of the hand-colored version.

OldGreenland-bowen-1747.jpg
 
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I didn't find a whirlpool thread, but I guess this is probably a sinkhole that opened under the water.

Yes - that's what I think it is / was ...

Here's a new whirlpool caused by a sinkhole opening beneath an Arkansas river, which caused the death of a kayaker.

Rare river sinkhole created whirlpool, led to man's death

A kayaker bypassed a part of an Arkansas scenic river known as Dead Man's Curve during a weekend trip, but a rare sinkhole created a whirlpool along his alternate channel and dragged him to his death.

Donald Wright, 64, from Searcy, Arkansas, died Saturday at Saddler Falls along the Spring River ... At least one other person was injured.

Sinkholes are common in the northern half of Arkansas, where subterranean limestone erodes away easily. Small whirlpools are common where bits of land extend into waterways, but having a sinkhole open a whirlpool in the middle of a stream is uncommon.

"I've been here for 40 years. This is the first one I've ever heard forming in a river like this," said Bill Prior, a geologist supervisor at the Arkansas Geological Survey. ...

The Spring River was flowing normally Saturday — fed by Mammoth Spring, the second-largest spring in the Ozark Mountains. Its steady flow, at about 356 cubic feet per second (enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every four minutes), makes it desirable for basic training on kayaks and canoes.

"Classes are often held on the Spring River because Mammoth Spring has such a reliable flow," said Jonathan Gillip, field operations chief for surface water at the U.S. Geological Survey office in Little Rock.

Dead Man's Curve has the occasional switchback, falls and pools, but isn't terribly turbulent, said Rocky McCollum, owner of Spring River Camp and Canoe. Boaters avoid it mainly to take a short cut around the switchbacks — but doing so Saturday put them on a portion of the stream where the river bed gave way.

"There are thousands of sinkholes across the northern part of the state," Gillip said. "This is an active one that people happened to see collapse, and it had a traumatic impact." ...

Saturday's whirlpool was both instantaneous and thousands of years in the making. The Spring River eroded harder rock above an underground cavity, and when the river bed gave way, it created a vacuum that sucked the water in a "pretty strong vortex," Prior said.

Rachel Ratliff, Rocky McCollum's daughter, rented canoes to Wright's group and said Wright was wearing a life jacket and was an experienced kayaker. "But the river is stronger than any life jacket there is," she said.

If the sinkhole system were closed, the water would drain into the cavity and eventually refill enough to kill the whirlpool. But because there's no change at the river gauge at Hardy, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) downstream, the whirlpool is likely diverting water back into the river, Gillip said. ...

... The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission warned prospective boaters to stay away from the whirlpool, which is marked off by buoys and ropes.

SOURCE: https://www.newstimes.com/news/us/article/Fatal-boating-accident-occurs-in-whirlpool-on-12984064.php
 
Here's a photo of the deadly Arkansas whirlpool. Like the one in kamalktk's cited post, it doesn't look like all that big a threat at face value. The downward suction must be very strong ...

ArkansasWhirlpool.jpg

 
Wouldn't want to have the boat in-around that mess, yikes.
 
Here's a photo of the deadly Arkansas whirlpool. Like the one in kamalktk's cited post, it doesn't look like all that big a threat at face value. The downward suction must be very strong ...

You can see the creek bottom in this picture meaning that there is not much water above the hole and so the drawdown is strong and focused. Imagine you are walking along the creek bottom (though they were boating in this case) and you step into this soft ground and the hole opens, it's a treacherous situation. I've heard of some pretty large trout sucked into holes in Pennsylvania streams due to swallets like this. It signifies that the water table is below the stream bed - not a good situation to have.
 
This thread was established to consolidate some posts from multiple locations on the subject of whirlpools caused by sinkholes beneath rivers and bodies of water.
 
Here's a photo of the deadly Arkansas whirlpool. Like the one in kamalktk's cited post, it doesn't look like all that big a threat at face value. The downward suction must be very strong ...

It's quite easy to drown in a weir, I guess this is probably equivalent to that.
 
This US Forest Service guide:

https://www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/htmlpubs/htm12732805/page03.htm

... describes and illustrates how sinkholes under or through dams and embankments can cause whirlpools. The whirlpool effect is most pronounced with "piping" - loss of impounded water through a small subterranean channel acting as a "pipe."
 
Sorry Enola a bit off topic I've seen the whirlpool down in lower gorge of the Niagara river. I Believe it's the most powerful freshwater whirlpool in the world. More than a few have been sucked down only to appear further down the river where the river where the whirlpool spits them out.
 
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