Latest news with #Tarasov
Yahoo
6 days 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
6 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.
New York Times
07-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Familiar script: Blue Jackets fall behind early, suffer second straight shutout
The Columbus Blue Jackets continue to fall behind and chase games. And now the Jackets are back in a scoring funk where they don't create many scoring chances, much less get one past the goaltender. It's as if the club that was so vivacious and dangerous in the first five months of the season — quite possibly the best story in the NHL this season — has gone missing. Advertisement On Sunday, the Blue Jackets were shut out 4-0 by the Ottawa Senators before 15,616 at the Canadian Tire Centre, further damaging their faint playoff hopes. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Blue Jackets were blanked 5-0 by the Toronto Maple Leafs. That's the second time this season, and the seventh time in franchise history, the Blue Jackets have been shut out in consecutive games. But that's not the ugliest of numbers: in their last 15 games, the Blue Jackets have been shut out six times and have just four wins (4-10-1). The free fall started right after the Blue Jackets beat the Detroit Red Wings on March 1 in an outdoor game in Ohio Stadium. Since then, they've mostly gone missing. 'The outdoor game and before that, everything was great,' said Blue Jackets goaltender Elvis Merzlikins, who came into the game in relief of starter Daniil Tarasov in the first period. 'This is hockey. Sometimes things don't work like you want them to, and sometimes they're even better than you'd expect. Some nights we score eight, some nights we score none. We have to stick together and work the problem out.' Dating back to a 7-3 loss to Colorado on Thursday in Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets have allowed 14 unanswered goals, matching a franchise record that was established in the dark ages of the franchise (Feb. 18-23, 2003). Their current scoreless streak sits at 152 minutes, 4 seconds. 'We're not scoring goals,' Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason said. 'It just gets magnified when you get down, because you're pressing even harder, and when you're not having success and you're not scoring goals and you're pressing, it's not a good recipe.' We're on Gaud's time ⏰#GoSensGo — Ottawa Senators (@Senators) April 6, 2025 The Blue Jackets fell behind on Sunday only 2:24 into the game when Senators forward Adam Gaudette took advantage of a huge gap defensively to beat Tarasov with a wrister from the high slot of the rush. Barely two minutes later, at 4:26, the lead grew to 2-0 when Tarasov stopped a Claude Giroux shot but left it on the doorstep for Nikolas Matinpalo, whose first NHL goal may be the easiest of his career. There were no Blue Jackets around to clear the crease, much less battle with Matinpalo. Advertisement One more Blue Jackets tendency that has changed dramatically of late: Evason, who has said he doesn't like to pull goaltenders from starts, has now done exactly that twice in three games. Merzlikins was pulled from the loss to Colorado after he splintered his stick on the net after allowing a third-period goal, and Tarasov was pulled after Matinpalo tucked home the rebound. Tarasov, who stopped four of six shots in only 4:26, endured the earliest pull of his career and the second-quickest hook the NHL has seen this season. Only twice in Blue Jackets franchise history has a goaltender been pulled earlier in the game, and both times it happened to Steve Mason, once in 2009-10 and once the following season. 'It's never one person's fault, and it obviously looks like that when a goaltender gets pulled,' Evason said. 'We certainly don't want to do that. Both of those goals were team goals. But we made a decision to try something, and obviously, it didn't work.' The only bright spot for the Blue Jackets was Merzlikins, who has struggled mightily in recent starts, but was strong in his first relief outing of the season. He stopped 22 of 23 shots the rest of the way, giving the Blue Jackets ample time to work their way back into it. Evason has been patient with his forward lines all season, but he went to the mixer on Sunday for a second straight game. Center Adam Fantilli was elevated to the top line between wingers Dmitri Voronko and Kirill Marchenko, while center Sean Monahan skated with Boone Jenner to his left and Kent Johnson to his right. Yegor Chinakhov, a healthy scratch in the previous six games, was back in the lineup, too, with veteran Zach Aston-Reese sitting as a healthy scratch. The changes didn't work. Columbus created just 10 high-danger chances. The Blue Jackets are among the league leaders in two completely disparate categories. They've scored six or more goals in 14 games, more than any other NHL club. They've also now been shut out nine times this season, second only to Nashville. Go figure. Advertisement At this point, with six games remaining in the season, it would take a miracle for the Blue Jackets to reach the postseason. It might take a few miracles, actually, as the Jackets would need the teams ahead of them to simply collapse in the final two weeks of the season. One number that hasn't changed lately: the Blue Jackets are 1-10 in the second of back-to-back games. They have one more next weekend (Saturday and Sunday) against the Washington Capitals. 'We have to have a belief that if we get on a roll and get on a run, we'll be a good spot at the end of the year,' Evason said. 'We have no question that everyone's competing. I don't care who it is … Elvis, Tarasov … they're competing. Every guy on the team is battling to try to win hockey games. We have no concerns over that.' (Photo of Daniil Tarasov: Marc DesRosiers / Imagn Images)
Fox Sports
30-03-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Batherson, Sanderson score as Senators beat Blue Jackets 3-2
Associated Press OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Drake Batherson and Jake Sanderson scored for Ottawa and the Senators beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-2 on Saturday night in a matchup of teams vying for playoff spots. Ridly Greig had a goal and an assist as Ottawa won for the third time in four games and strengthened its hold on the first wild card in the Eastern Conference. Linus Ullmark had 29 saves. Boone Jenner and Kirill Marchenko scored for Columbus, which was coming off a 7-6 shootout win over Vancouver the previous night. Daniil Tarasov finished with 24 saves. The Blue Jackets remained tied with Montreal and the New York Rangers with 75 points — eight points behind Ottawa. The Canadiens hold the second wild card by virtue of more regulation wins than the Blue Jackets and more games remaining than the Rangers. Marchenkov pulled the Blue Jackets to 3-2, beating Ullmark five-hole midway through the third to silence a boisterous Ottawa crowd. The Senators took a 3-1 lead in the second when Tarasov stopped Shane Pinto before Sanderson got a piece of the rebound. Greig opened the scoring deftly tipping Thomas Chabot' point shot. Columbus tied it 31 seconds later with Jenner burying the rebound of Zach Werenski's shot. Batherson regained the lead for the Senators by grabbing the rebound of Dylan Cozens' shot and sweeping it under Tarasov for his 21st of the season. Takeaways Senators: Ottawa had a strong net front presence and it paid off. The Senators have a firm grip on the first wild card in the Eastern Conference. Blue Jackets: Despite playing the night before, Columbus never let up and making it a one-goal game with 9 minutes left in the third. Key moment Ullmark made a save on Dmitri Voronkov in the final minute of the first that proved to be crucial. Key stat Ottawa's Shane Pinto played his 200th NHL game Saturday and picked up his 100th point with an assist on Sanderson's goal in the second period. Up next Blue Jackets host Nashville on Tuesday, and Senators visit Pittsburgh on Sunday. ___ AP NHL:
Associated Press
30-03-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Batherson, Sanderson score as Senators beat Blue Jackets 3-2
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Drake Batherson and Jake Sanderson scored for Ottawa and the Senators beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-2 on Saturday night in a matchup of teams vying for playoff spots. Ridly Greig had a goal and an assist as Ottawa won for the third time in four games and strengthened its hold on the first wild card in the Eastern Conference. Linus Ullmark had 29 saves. Boone Jenner and Kirill Marchenko scored for Columbus, which was coming off a 7-6 shootout win over Vancouver the previous night. Daniil Tarasov finished with 24 saves. The Blue Jackets remained tied with Montreal and the New York Rangers with 75 points — eight points behind Ottawa. The Canadiens hold the second wild card by virtue of more regulation wins than the Blue Jackets and more games remaining than the Rangers. Marchenkov pulled the Blue Jackets to 3-2, beating Ullmark five-hole midway through the third to silence a boisterous Ottawa crowd. The Senators took a 3-1 lead in the second when Tarasov stopped Shane Pinto before Sanderson got a piece of the rebound. Greig opened the scoring deftly tipping Thomas Chabot' point shot. Columbus tied it 31 seconds later with Jenner burying the rebound of Zach Werenski's shot. Batherson regained the lead for the Senators by grabbing the rebound of Dylan Cozens' shot and sweeping it under Tarasov for his 21st of the season. Takeaways Senators: Ottawa had a strong net front presence and it paid off. The Senators have a firm grip on the first wild card in the Eastern Conference. Blue Jackets: Despite playing the night before, Columbus never let up and making it a one-goal game with 9 minutes left in the third. Key moment Ullmark made a save on Dmitri Voronkov in the final minute of the first that proved to be crucial. Key stat Ottawa's Shane Pinto played his 200th NHL game Saturday and picked up his 100th point with an assist on Sanderson's goal in the second period. Up next Blue Jackets host Nashville on Tuesday, and Senators visit Pittsburgh on Sunday. ___
