Latest news with #LabradorMorning
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Rare black iceberg spotted off Labrador coast could be 100,000 years old, prof says
A rare black iceberg spotted off the coast of Labrador is making a splash on social media after a fish harvester living in Carbonear, N.L., took a photo of it while fishing for shrimp last month. Originally from the Faroe Islands, Hallur Antoniussen was working with a crew on board the Saputi factory freezer trawler off the coast of Labrador in mid-May. He'd never seen an iceberg like this one before. "I have seen icebergs that are rolled, what they say have rolled in the beach with some rocks in it. This one here is completely different. It's not only that he is all black. He is almost ... in a diamond shape," Antoniussen said in an interview with CBC Radio's Labrador Morning. He spotted the berg after going up the ship's crane when they were more than 100 kilometres offshore in the Hopedale channel, located between Nain and Hopedale. A crew member had counted 47 icebergs in the area just the day before. Antoniussen doesn't think it's a berg that tipped over — or rolled on the beach — picking up dirt and rocks after getting grounded. He's seen a lot of icebergs over his 50 years of fishing off of Greenland, and more recently off the Labrador coast since 1989. The 64-year-old said it was hard to estimate the size of the iceberg at sea but figured it was at least three times the size of a regular bungalow. He took a picture from roughly six kilometres away. "It's something you don't see very often, and a camera is not something I run around [with] when I'm working. So, I just ran to my room and took my phone and snapped this picture," he said. Antoniussen said the berg looked like a rock with lots of really dark greys and black veins in it, and quickly ruled out that a shadow was being cast on it. He took the photo to show other crew members on the fishing boat. Then Antoniussen posted it on Facebook, and it soon took off, garnering hundreds of comments after being shared around. Commenters have mused about everything from aliens to precious metals, and even dinosaurs being hidden in the ice. "It's an Oil Berg," said one poster. "Looks like a giant [woolly] mammoth!" exclaimed another. Antoniessen is clear: this is a real photo. Other people wondered if the iceberg has volcanic ash in it, a result of some ancient eruption. Lev Tarasov, a Memorial University professor of physical oceanography, doesn't rule that last theory out completely. Tarasov says there are volcanoes beneath the ice caps of Iceland, and while he's not exactly sure about volcanoes in Greenland, he added that scientists have measured hotspots in the landmass's central region. Like Antoniussen, he hasn't seen an iceberg quite like this one before. Tarasov observed smaller versions of the black iceberg during his fieldwork on the Kangerlussuaq Fjord in Greenland last summer -— just not as impressive, he said. He guesses it could be between 1,000 and 2,000 years old, but could also contain ice that's older than 100,000 years old. Tarasov said ice from all over Greenland is slowly converging toward its coastline, and when it gets there, it breaks off to form icebergs. Those icebergs can take one to three years before reaching the Newfoundland and Labrador coastline. Tarasov says it's a reminder just how dynamic ice can be. Ice streams, also known as outlet glaciers, move much faster than other parts of the ice sheet; they carry ice from the interior, traveling through deep valleys or channels out to the coast. They pick up rocks and dirt along the way. "There's parts of the ice that are actually flowing up to 20 kilometres per year, which would mean that ... the ice is moving maybe a few metres every hour," Tarasov said. The bottom of the ice grinds against the earth's crust, he explained. There's a whole lot of churning, turning all that rock and sediment into a powder that then spreads up through columns of ice. It would take a long time for that ground-up rock to spread so uniformly throughout the ice, Tarasov said. Tarasov theorizes that the black berg was probably part of a much larger chunk of ice before it broke off into the water. "Over time, as it travels around Baffin Bay and down the coast of Labrador, it's melting away. So I think a lot of that ice is melted away. Maybe the part that's clean is underneath, right? Again, 90 per cent of the ice is underneath the water. So we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg on top," he said. Tarasov thinks the iceberg rolled over at some point, and is now showing its underbelly. He also offers another possible explanation for the iceberg's intriguing colour. There is strong evidence showing that an asteroid struck the northwest corner of Greenland some 12,000 years ago, he said. The iceberg could have some dust from that meteorite strike if it came from the area. No matter what, the ice likely isn't new: it's quite possible the dirt on the iceberg may not have seen the "light of day for hundreds of thousands of years," Tarasov said. Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Rare black iceberg spotted off Labrador coast could be 100,000 years old, prof says
A rare black iceberg spotted off the coast of Labrador is making a splash on social media after a fish harvester living in Carbonear, N.L., took a photo of it while fishing for shrimp last month. Originally from the Faroe Islands, Hallur Antoniussen was working with a crew on board the Saputi factory freezer trawler off the coast of Labrador in mid-May. He'd never seen an iceberg like this one before. "I have seen icebergs that are rolled, what they say have rolled in the beach with some rocks in it. This one here is completely different. It's not only that he is all black. He is almost ... in a diamond shape," Antoniussen said in an interview with CBC Radio's Labrador Morning. He spotted the berg after going up the ship's crane when they were more than 100 kilometres offshore in the Hopedale channel, located between Nain and Hopedale. A crew member had counted 47 icebergs in the area just the day before. Antoniussen doesn't think it's a berg that tipped over — or rolled on the beach — picking up dirt and rocks after getting grounded. He's seen a lot of icebergs over his 50 years of fishing off of Greenland, and more recently off the Labrador coast since 1989. The 64-year-old said it was hard to estimate the size of the iceberg at sea but figured it was at least three times the size of a regular bungalow. He took a picture from roughly six kilometres away. "It's something you don't see very often, and a camera is not something I run around [with] when I'm working. So, I just ran to my room and took my phone and snapped this picture," he said. Antoniussen said the berg looked like a rock with lots of really dark greys and black veins in it, and quickly ruled out that a shadow was being cast on it. He took the photo to show other crew members on the fishing boat. Then Antoniussen posted it on Facebook, and it soon took off, garnering hundreds of comments after being shared around. Commenters have mused about everything from aliens to precious metals, and even dinosaurs being hidden in the ice. "It's an Oil Berg," said one poster. "Looks like a giant [woolly] mammoth!" exclaimed another. Antoniessen is clear: this is a real photo. Other people wondered if the iceberg has volcanic ash in it, a result of some ancient eruption. Lev Tarasov, a Memorial University professor of physical oceanography, doesn't rule that last theory out completely. Tarasov says there are volcanoes beneath the ice caps of Iceland, and while he's not exactly sure about volcanoes in Greenland, he added that scientists have measured hotspots in the landmass's central region. Like Antoniussen, he hasn't seen an iceberg quite like this one before. Tarasov observed smaller versions of the black iceberg during his fieldwork on the Kangerlussuaq Fjord in Greenland last summer -— just not as impressive, he said. He guesses it could be between 1,000 and 2,000 years old, but could also contain ice that's older than 100,000 years old. Tarasov said ice from all over Greenland is slowly converging toward its coastline, and when it gets there, it breaks off to form icebergs. Those icebergs can take one to three years before reaching the Newfoundland and Labrador coastline. Tarasov says it's a reminder just how dynamic ice can be. Ice streams, also known as outlet glaciers, move much faster than other parts of the ice sheet; they carry ice from the interior, traveling through deep valleys or channels out to the coast. They pick up rocks and dirt along the way. "There's parts of the ice that are actually flowing up to 20 kilometres per year, which would mean that ... the ice is moving maybe a few metres every hour," Tarasov said. The bottom of the ice grinds against the earth's crust, he explained. There's a whole lot of churning, turning all that rock and sediment into a powder that then spreads up through columns of ice. It would take a long time for that ground-up rock to spread so uniformly throughout the ice, Tarasov said. Tarasov theorizes that the black berg was probably part of a much larger chunk of ice before it broke off into the water. "Over time, as it travels around Baffin Bay and down the coast of Labrador, it's melting away. So I think a lot of that ice is melted away. Maybe the part that's clean is underneath, right? Again, 90 per cent of the ice is underneath the water. So we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg on top," he said. Tarasov thinks the iceberg rolled over at some point, and is now showing its underbelly. He also offers another possible explanation for the iceberg's intriguing colour. There is strong evidence showing that an asteroid struck the northwest corner of Greenland some 12,000 years ago, he said. The iceberg could have some dust from that meteorite strike if it came from the area. No matter what, the ice likely isn't new: it's quite possible the dirt on the iceberg may not have seen the "light of day for hundreds of thousands of years," Tarasov said. Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador.
CBC
02-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Minister 'extremely frustrated' over PUB rejection of diesel generating station in southern Labrador
Labrador Affairs Minister Lisa Dempster is voicing her frustrations after the province's Public Utilities Board rejected a proposed diesel power generating station in southern Labrador — saying the provincial government might need to intervene. On Monday the PUB rejected an application made by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to build a $110.9 million regional diesel generating station and interconnection in southern Labrador. "I am so, quite frankly, fed up. Out of patience," Dempster told CBC Radio's Labrador Morning on Wednesday. She says the rejected plan hits close to home. Dempster lived near Charlottetown's diesel-powered generating plant, which burned down in 2019. The towns in the area now rely on mobile generation. "I cannot believe that instead of opening up a new plant, giving residents reliable power, that [Monday] we came to a full stop again. I'm extremely frustrated," Dempster said. The proposed plant, which would have operated in Port Hope Simpson, would power and interconnect six communities in the region. It also would have replaced several existing small diesel plants. Dempster said N.L. Hydro and the PUB need to get to a table to talk and get beyond the impasse. She says she's also frustrated that, more than a year ago, N.L. Hydro submitted thousands of pages of documents for the PUB to review on the proposed generating station, but the rejection only just now happened. Green energy The PUB's decision noted it had a lot more commentary from the public than usual, and that people wanted environmentally responsible solutions. Dempster understands where those concerns are coming from. She was recently named the minister of Environment and Climate Change during a cabinet shuffle over the summer. Still, she said, the region needs a reliable source of power, pointing to the area's volunteer firefighters who feel the pressure when power outages happen. She says outages occur four times more than on the Avalon Peninsula. "I believe we've got to look to get reliable power back in a community that's been on mobile units, a temporary fix, for almost six years," she said. In the meantime, Dempster says she has spoken with N.L. Hydro president Jennifer Williams, but a meeting she requested with the PUB was rejected. "We cannot continue to be at this impasse for an indefinite period of time," she said. NunatuKavut 'pleased' But Todd Russell, president of the NunatuKavut community council, wrote in a statement on Wednesday that he welcomes the PUB's decision, pointing to a section that says N.L. Hydro should satisfy its duty to consult with the NCC. "We are pleased that the PUB recognizes N.L. Hydro's responsibilities stemming from Canada's Constitution and as set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," wrote Russell. The NCC claims to represent about 6,000 self-identifying Inuit in southern Labrador, including Dempster. The NCC isn't recognized as Inuit by any other federally recognized, rights-holding Inuit collective, including the Nunatsiavut government in northern Labrador and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami — the national organization representing Inuit across Canada — who both say the group is a settler organization.
CBC
08-03-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Advocates say it's more important now than ever for women to uplift each other
Federation of Labour president says more work is needed to reach gender equality With the arrival of a day meant to celebrate women, one Labrador West advocate says it's more important than ever for women to support one another. Labrador West Status of Women Council executive director Kim Martin Dyer says she doesn't foresee a time when her organization won't be needed. "I'd love to be at a point in my life where I'm not needed by a woman in crisis, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon," Martin Dyer told CBC Radio's Labrador Morning. Saturday marks International Women's Day, and this year's theme is empowerment for women of all ages, which, she said, is timely. Specific to Labrador, she says women still face barriers when it comes to getting necessities like affordable groceries, child care, health care and housing. Getting a family doctor is "basically out of the question," she said. "I do believe, right now in our region, that we are in a housing crisis and that certainly affects women in our area. Women with small children, single women, senior women, widowed women," Martin Dyer said. Still far to go But despite advancements like better wages an working conditions for women and gender diverse people, Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour president Jessica McCormick says there needs to be action to ensure those advancements are protected. She says a surge in far-right extremism is also worrying. "We don't just import goods from the U.S., the ideology makes its way to Canada as well. So how do we ensure that we're kind of stemming the tide of that shift here in Canada and protecting the progress that we've made while also continuing to advance," McCormick told CBC Radio's The St. John's Morning Show. There's work to do in Newfoundland and Labrador, she said, in terms of representation in the workplace. About 60 per cent of minimum wage earners are women and there is still a gender wage gap that has yet to be closed. "And when we look at the makeup of leadership and advancement in the workplace, we still have a lot of work to do in the public and private sector," said McCormick. While the provincial government passed pay equity legislation in 2022, there hasn't been regulation or full implementation, she said. "We made some progress in Newfoundland and Labrador with paid domestic violence leave several years ago, but we still have an epidemic, we would say, of intimate partner violence in the province and that trickles into affecting women in their work," she said. But there have been some wins, McCormick added, pointing to improvements in affordable child care. "I think that that's something absolutely worth celebrating," she said. "We've made progress — still more to do and it feels like heavy topics to focus on — but today, I definitely feel like it's important to celebrate the accomplishments that we've made for women and gender diverse people."
CBC
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
What's going on? Margaret's Mixtape music series concludes with a Marvin Gaye hit
Black History Month has concluded for another year, but just under the wire, we have one final edition of Margaret's Mixtape. Every Friday through February, Happy Valley-Goose Bay teen Margaret Beyere joined CBC Radio's Labrador Morning to host a segment where she introduces a song by a Black artist who inspires her. We dubbed it Margaret's Mixtape. As she reflects on the segment, she says she feels inspired by how different musical styles can bring people together. "What inspires me the most is the way it can all relate to each other while being so different," she said. "We've heard a little bit of Afrobeat from Nigerian artists, we've heard some more acoustic stuff on the American side." And for the final song we heard a little bit of Motown. This week, Beyere went with the 1971 protest song What's Going On by one of the pillars of Motown — Marvin Gaye. She says she wanted something that would speak to a different aspect of Black history in the United States. What's Going On was written in the wake of the civil rights movement and inspired by Vietnam War protests. "It's a great reflection on society and on the importance of helping one another," Beyere said. Beyere says she's always compelled to investigate the story behind a song. "I really feel inspired listening to some people's art because it tells a story of their lives and how they perceive things," she said. Having just turned 18, and looking ahead to graduating high school, she anticipates one thing that won't change for her: music will always be part of her life. "It's something that makes me feel comfortable," she said. "It's something that brings me peace." As she continues her journey exploring music, Beyere says she's excited to see what she might uncover. "I think it's really important to highlight that — especially during Black History Month — none of us are ever done learning," she said. "And that there's always something hidden that is just waiting for us to find by opening a conversation or by listening to a song." Margaret's Mixtape has finished airing, but you can find it through Labrador Morning on the CBC Listen app.
