Ian Whillans
The glaciologist who explained how Antarctic ice gathers meteorites, and who co-found the first meteorite recognised from the Moon.
Key facts
- Born
- 1944
- Died
- 2001
- Nationality
- Canadian-born American
- Field
- Glaciologist
Ian McKenzie Whillans was a glaciologist at Ohio State University who studied how the great Antarctic ice sheet flows. He spent many seasons on the ice and worked out how fast it moves, how thick it is and how it responds to climate.
Whillans joined ANSMET searches to understand why meteorites gather in certain places. With William Cassidy he showed how ice flowing slowly from the interior is forced upwards where it meets mountains or buried ridges. There, fierce dry winds wear the ice away, bringing to the surface meteorites that fell far inland thousands of years before. These blue-ice areas are where nearly all Antarctic meteorites are found.
On 17 January 1982, in the Allan Hills, Whillans and the mountaineer John Schutt picked up a small greenish stone that turned out to be the first meteorite known to come from the Moon, ALH A81005.
Whillans died in 2001. The Whillans Ice Stream in West Antarctica, a fast-flowing river of ice that he studied, is named after him.
See more
The Allan Hills 81005 meteorite