Whirlwind Inlet

Whirlwind Inlet is an ice-filled inlet on the east coast of Graham Land in the British Antarctic Territory. It recedes inland for seven nautical miles and is twelve nautical miles wide at its entrance between Cape Northrop and Tent Nunatak, along the east coast of Graham Land, separating the Foyn Coast to the north from the Bowman Coast to the south.

The inlet opens out into the Larsen Ice Shelf. Into the inlet flow the Flint Glacier, Demorest Glacier, Matthes Glacier and Chamberlin Glacier, known together as the Whirlwind Glaciers.

Surveys and naming

Sir Hubert Wilkins discovered the inlet on his flight of 20 December 1928. Wilkins reported the four large glaciers flowing into the inlet, which he named 'Whirlwind Glaciers' because their relative position was suggestive of the radial cylinders of his Wright Whirlwind engine which powered his aeroplane (a Lockheed Vega monoplane). The inlet was later named after the glaciers.

The inlet was photographed from the air by the United States Antarctic Service in 1940 and charted by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1947.

Location map

• Location map: 67°29’24"S, 65°24’44"W

References

• Gazetteer and Map of The British Antarctic Territory: Whirlwind Inlet