Rare black iceberg spotted off Labrador coast could be 100k years old

149 pointsposted 8 months ago
by pseudolus

81 Comments

HocusLocus

8 months ago

"Fisher Hallur Antoniussen took a photo of it to show crewmates, but it quickly took off after being posted on social media."

I don't blame it, I would have done the same.

tickerticker

8 months ago

The exposed portion of the berg is roughly spherical. The submerged portion must be enormous and approximately symmetrical to hold that sphere in such an upright position.

Frummy

8 months ago

So the tip of the iceberg is just the tip of the iceberg

lucyjojo

8 months ago

Indeed, that tautology is a true statement.

Retric

8 months ago

With just one photo we can’t really say if the exposed portion is roughly spherical. However, the guy taking the photo who presumably got a better look seems to think it was “diamond shape.”

user

8 months ago

[deleted]

scoot

8 months ago

Is this just of passing interest, or something that "ists" (scientists, geologists, climatologists etc.) would gain potentially valuable data by taking samples from it?

user

8 months ago

[deleted]

tantalor

8 months ago

Check around it for Super Samples!

jvanderbot

8 months ago

I wish I didn't think this immediately as well.

creaturemachine

8 months ago

Wait until the Democracy Officer hears of this lack of faith!

IncreasePosts

8 months ago

Wouldn't this melt "quickly" due to solar radiation based on how dark it is? That is to say, I wouldn't it most likely be closer to 100 years old than 100,000 years old?

burnt-resistor

8 months ago

That's for new soot depositing on ordinary, existing glaciers with previously high albedo. That causes a spiraling feedback effect of more forest fires and accelerating glacier melt,

It's probable that these dark glaciers are mostly sludge with only a bit of ice. We won't know until some field researchers go out there and gather data and samples.

malfist

8 months ago

I'm sure you know more about iceburg ages than the professor of oceanography that dated it.

dotancohen

8 months ago

To be fair, the guy who just dated it likey knows the least about it. It's the guy who broke up with it that knows the most.

IncreasePosts

8 months ago

I was literally asking about the range that the oceanographer provided. I didn't assert anything

marcusverus

8 months ago

This post--which actually engages with the content of the article--is being downvoted, while "Do black Labrador icebergs also have webbed feet, to swim better?" is being upvoted.

Where do we run once the redditification of HN is complete?

bee_rider

8 months ago

Do black Labrador icebergs also have webbed feet, to swim better?

bregma

8 months ago

No, but golden Labrador icebergs are the friendliest of all the icebergs and can make a great addition to any family.

burnt-resistor

8 months ago

The vet bills and cleaning up after them is really ridiculous.

trod1234

8 months ago

Why would an iceberg be a "he is all black?"

morkalork

8 months ago

Will the icebergs broken off get older and older?

cess11

8 months ago

As long as we keep pushing CO2 into the atmosphere and don't run out of ice, yeah, most likely.

dylan604

8 months ago

After reading, I'm less interested in a black iceberg as much as now wondering what a fish harvester is as it's not a term I've seen before. Have we changed the term to reflect the vast quantities of fish that fisherman is inadequate?

serial_dev

8 months ago

It could be to make fishermen gender neutral, but I think it is to hide the fact that you are essentially killing the fish by the thousands, letting them suffocate. Fish harvesting sounds innocent and PG 13.

ahazred8ta

8 months ago

There's a union or collective bargaining guild that has trademarked the term Professional Fish Harvester in Canada. #PFHCB

IncreasePosts

8 months ago

Fisherman: catches fish

Fish harvester: might catch fish, but might also be the one that cleans/processes them and isn't actually involved in pulling the fish out of the water

tanseydavid

8 months ago

I am guessing that it is a translation artifact.

creaturemachine

8 months ago

Newfoundland is predominantly English-speaking, so it's unlikely this reporter used anything else when preparing this story.

soperj

8 months ago

>Newfoundland is predominantly English-speaking

That's quite generous of you to say.

margalabargala

8 months ago

For anyone wondering, over 98% of Newfoundland's population speaks only English.

https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/society/language.php

dylan604

8 months ago

Yeah, Newfies speak English just like Scottish speak English. Those words might be English, but it's the phrasing that makes no sense.

mc3301

8 months ago

What're you at 'der b'y?

Eavolution

8 months ago

Can confirm, I've only ever heard a chain of the word "woof" from a newfie.

grovesNL

8 months ago

Yes b'y, Newfoundland English is best kind sure.

fooster

8 months ago

Newfoundlanders you mean.

brailsafe

8 months ago

Fairly sure Newfie is broadly used as a colloquial term of endearment in the rest of Canada, by Newfoundlanders and non-Newfoundlanders. There's just too many syllables

creaturemachine

8 months ago

How about Newfoundland-and-Labradorean? It's funny that the only ones insulted by Newfie are the non-newfies.

fooster

8 months ago

I am a Newfoundlander and I don’t appreciate that term.

fooster

8 months ago

It is not. It is insulting and derogatory. Don’t use it thanks.

brailsafe

8 months ago

While that's not how it's ever been used in my life, I can accept that it's perfectly valid for you and presumably many others to feel differently.

Having grown up with so much predominantly east coast originating comedy, and around so many Newfoundland diaspora, I guess it never occurred to me that there was any real negative connotation whatsoever, beyond poking a bit of fun at some of the presumably antiquated cultural stereotypical differences via self-deprecating jokes that most people from smaller places have their own versions of and don't take too seriously.

tejtm

8 months ago

Curious that.

The English did force the French population out of there and down the Mississippi to become Cajuns.

And the children of the native Abenaki population were sent to English Schools.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Acadians


   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system

soperj

8 months ago

Acadians were in Nova Scotia. There were already a bunch of French in New Orleans/Louisiana. Hence "Louis"iana, new "Orleans", "De-troit" etc. It was all new France.

And the residential schools happened well after the formation of Canada, and a lot of happened at the behest of the Catholic Church (ie: French Canadians). see Vital Grandin.

margalabargala

8 months ago

Well sure. Lots of shitty things were done that caused the current state of affairs to come into being.

I was just describing the present day, not defending whatbwas done to create it.

HPsquared

8 months ago

It makes sense in the context of fish farming. Not sure if that's what this is, though. Harvesting doesn't sound appropriate for catching wild fish.

kkylin

8 months ago

Might one say fish harvesters capture "exponentially more fish"? (Sorry, couldn't resist...)

dan-robertson

8 months ago

I think it might be a gender-neutral version of fisherman. Not something like a factory ship.

user

8 months ago

[deleted]

xeromal

8 months ago

It's a horrible alternative lol

blipvert

8 months ago

Wait until you have to deal with the horror of gender specific icebergs!

“It's not only that he is all black. He is almost ... in a diamond shape”

BurningFrog

8 months ago

[flagged]

user

8 months ago

[deleted]

m3kw9

8 months ago

When are these going on sale in drinks?

tromp

8 months ago

> He guesses the ice in the berg is at least 1,000 years old, but could also be exponentially more ancient — even formed as many as 100,000 years ago.

That's not exponentially more (which would be a preposterous 2^1000 or 10^1000 years old). It's just 100 times more. Should I stop being annoyed at how media use the word and just accept their alternative meaning of "a lot" ?

Scarblac

8 months ago

It's two numbers. It's a constant increase, you can fit a line between them, but also a degree 10 polynomial or an exponential curve.

Yes, it just means "a lot".

burnt-resistor

8 months ago

High variance/confidence interval. Probably needs some C14 / O18 dating to narrow it down by field researchers gathering samples rather than us speculating from afar.

escapecharacter

8 months ago

I agree, you can also say exponential if there's 4 or more numbers.

jhrmnn

8 months ago

This is how language develops, I’m afraid. But imagine that the age is 10^k where k is something like “age class”. Then indeed the age grows exponentially :)

serial_dev

8 months ago

It still doesn’t grow exponentially, it is just orders of magnitude older.

Possibly, because if I read between the lines, their answer is “huh I dunno”.

parineum

8 months ago

Orders of magnitude is an exponential measure.

1*10^n

serial_dev

8 months ago

Yes, but where is the growth? They just said that the age of iceberg is 1000 years or maybe older 100.000.

There is no exponential growth there, just someone not having any clue about the iceberg wanting to sound knowledgeable about the subject.

WithinReason

8 months ago

so then every change can be called exponential

user

8 months ago

[deleted]

serial_dev

8 months ago

> This chair is 4 years old. Or, maybe 5 years old.

Yeah, exponential growth!!!

SAI_Peregrinus

8 months ago

1.0116^10000 ≈ 100000

Journalists tend to just think of it as "a lot more", but since they didn't specify the base of the exponential we can at least find a way to make the article technically correct. There are fun classes that admit incomparable values, such as the Surreal games. If they'd said "the game {1 | -1} is exponentially more than { | }" then it'd be impossible to find a base to make the statement true. There's lots of fun to be had with this sort of math, as you know.

mekoka

8 months ago

If we want to express ourselves using exponents, consider that 1000 years (1×10^3) and 9000 years (9×10^3) would be of the same "degree" of ancestry, while 100,000 years (1×10^5) would be of completely different (exponential) significance.

fuzztester

8 months ago

it's not only the media.

it's just a figure of speech, (used like some people (ab)use "literally"), which I am sure you know, considering your profile, or even otherwise.

other people than the media use it too:

e.g. this Rob Pike post about Go (the programming language, not the game you like):

Less is exponentially more

https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponenti...

readthenotes1

8 months ago

10^2 in exponential form...

At least he didn't say logarithmically more

ghssds

8 months ago

1.01158^1000 ~= 100000

Exponentially more!

Frummy

8 months ago

1000^(5/3)=100 000

pestatije

8 months ago

any exponential can reasonably be approximated to a linear in the right range