Whirlpools?

Question

What is a whirl pool? How do they occur? What is at the bottom of one? What would happen if I fell down one and where would I end up? Do they even exist???

Answer 1

A small whirlpool and a slower one is called an eddy. It is caused by the water reaching an area in which there is a cutout in the bank of a river, causing the water to circle due to the resistance of the new area. It can be formed by rocks, tree sections, anything that creates a change in resistance.

A large one is called a gyre. It is not as fast as a whirlpool, but much greater. If you look at the currents of the oceans, you will see where they meet other currents, or a change in the resistance to travel.

As the answers above, they can form when two rivers meet, due to the sudden change (resistance) they meet each other.

They most well known one in earlier times was called the various things. It was in the ocean where the Mediterranean ocean poured into the Atlantic. There was an altitude difference that caused the turbulence. It "ate" many ships, so the Greeks thought it was the mouth of Charybdis, a gateway to Hades. Charybdis was the boat man who took the souls of the departed to the afterworld.

Answer 2

Most whirlpools form in rivers where two currents meet at different speeds at the surface of the river. It has nothing to do with water going out the bottom of the river. Two currents meet at different speeds or from different directions and a spin at the surface is the result.

Answer 3

They form where to two streams of water meet or run close enough to each other to interact, sometimes causing a vortex. You don't fall doen a whirlpool, though you can be sucked into one, and carried down, and held down long enough to drown. You will emerge however! What goes dowm, must come up!