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Fisherman is baffled after stumbling across a huge BLACK iceberg off the coast of Canada

Fisherman is baffled after stumbling across a huge BLACK iceberg off the coast of Canada

Daily Mail​13-06-2025

In the chilly waters of the North Atlantic, it's not uncommon to see icebergs floating by.
During the spring and summer, bright white glacial giants of every shape and size drift past the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.
But floating serenely amid the pale ice chunks was one iceberg that left a fisherman completely baffled.
While its size was impressive there was one other thing that particularly made it stand out – the fact that it was completely black.
Hallur Antoniussen, originally from the Faroe Islands, was aboard a fishing trawler when he spotted the strange sight last month.
'I have seen icebergs that are rolled, what they say have rolled in the beach with some rocks in it,' he told CBC Radio.
'This one here is completely different. It's not only that he is all black. He is almost…in a diamond shape.'
Mr Antoniussen, 64, said it was hard to estimate the size of the iceberg since it was roughly six kilometres away when he took a photograph of it.
However, he believes it was at least three times the size of a regular bungalow.
Icebergs traditionally appear white because they are filled with tiny pockets of trapped air that scatter all wavelengths of light.
One explanation for the rare black iceberg is that it became mixed with a lot of debris thousands of years ago when it was part of a larger glacier.
As glaciers move towards the ocean they grind along the ground, stirring up debris that becomes mixed in with the ice.
Glaciologist Dr Lev Tarasov, from Memorial University in Canada, said it would take a long time for this debris to become as uniformly mixed through as it appears in the image.
He believes the iceberg may have rolled over at some point, and is now showing its underbelly.
'Over time, as it travels around Baffin Bay and down the coast of Labrador, it's melting away,' he said.
'So I think a lot of that ice is melted away. Maybe the part that's clean is underneath?
As glaciers move towards the ocean they grind along the ground, stirring up debris that becomes mixed in with the ice. Pictured: A hanging glacier in Dickson Fjord, Northeast Greenland National Park
'Again, 90 per cent of the ice is underneath the water. So we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg on top.'
He added that it's possible the dirt on the iceberg may not have seen the light of day 'for hundreds of thousands of years'.
Another possibility for the dark colouration is that the ice became mixed with soot from a huge volcanic eruption, or even debris from a historic meteor strike.
Dr Tarasov said he observed smaller versions of the black iceberg during his fieldwork on the Kangerlussuaq Fjord in Greenland last summer — but not as impressive.
HOW CAN AN ICEBERG PROVIDE WATER FOR DROUGHT-STRICKEN AREAS?
There have been several attempts at moving icebergs to end droughts.
In 2017, the UAE was experiencing severe water shortages and a project was set up to tow an iceberg to the region.
These plans involved harvesting icebergs from Heard Island, around 600 miles (1,000 kilometres) off the coast of mainland Antarctica.
The only details provided at the time, was that towing would be the most likely method.
South Africa in 2018 is experiencing its worst drought for a century.
A renowned marine salvage master from the country also believes towing an iceberg could be the answer.
Cape Town-based Nick Sloane, director of Resolve Marine, wants to tow a rogue iceberg 1,200 miles form the Antarctic ocean to Cape Town.
He intends to do this by using a material skirt, made of a specialist geotextile, which would fit around the underside of the huge chunk of ice.
In order for this to be successful, the iceberg must be of specific size and shape, with steep sides.
Huge tankers would guide and pull the iceberg through the water and the skirt would help reduce evaporation.
A milling machine would then then cut into the ice, producing a slurry and forming a saucer structure that will speed up the natural process, he said.
The removal of the salt from the water would require huge desalination plants, and a large injection of cash to build plants capable of processing several thousand tonnes.

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Scientists SOLVE the mystery of the ‘Dragon Man': Ancient skull is first ever found from lost group of ancient humans that lived 217,000 years ago
Scientists SOLVE the mystery of the ‘Dragon Man': Ancient skull is first ever found from lost group of ancient humans that lived 217,000 years ago

Daily Mail​

time2 days ago

  • Daily Mail​

Scientists SOLVE the mystery of the ‘Dragon Man': Ancient skull is first ever found from lost group of ancient humans that lived 217,000 years ago

It has baffled scientists since it was first discovered back in 2018. But the mystery of the 'Dragon Man' skull has finally been solved - as a new study reveals its true identity. Using DNA samples from plaque on the fossil's teeth, researchers have proven that the Dragon Man belonged to a lost group of ancient humans called the Denisovans. This species emerged around 217,000 years ago and passed on traces of DNA to modern humans before being lost to time. Denisovans were first discovered in 2010 when palaeontologists found a single finger of a girl who lived 66,000 years ago in the Denisova Cave in Siberia. But with only tiny fragments of bones to work with, palaeontologists couldn't learn anything more about our long-lost ancestors. Now, as the first confirmed Denisovan skull, the Dragon Man can provide scientists with an idead of what these ancient humans might have looked like. Dr Bence Viola, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto in Canada who was not involved in the study, told MailOnline: 'This is very exciting. Since their discovery in 2010, we knew that there is this other group of humans out there that our ancestors interacted with, but we had no idea how they looked except for some of their teeth.' Scientists have finally solved the mystery of the 'Dragon Man' skull which belonged to an ancient human who lived 146,000 years ago Scientists have now confirmed that the skull is that of a Denisovan (artist's impression), an ancient species of human which emerged around 217,000 years ago The Dragon Man skull is believed to have been found by a Chinese railway worker in 1933 while the country was under Japanese occupation. Not knowing what the fossilised skull could be but suspecting it might be important, the labourer hid the skull at the bottom of the well near Harbin City. He only revealed its location shortly before his death, and his surviving family found it in 2018 and donated it to the Hebei GEO University. Scientists dubbed the skull 'Homo Longi' or 'Dragon Man' after the Heilongjiang near where it was found, which translates to black dragon river. The researchers knew that this skull didn't belong to either homo sapiens or Neanderthals but couldn't prove which other species it might be part of. In two papers, published in Cell and Science, researchers have now managed to gather enough DNA evidence to prove that Dragon Man was a Denisovan. Lead researcher Dr Qiaomei Fu, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had previously tried to extract DNA from bones in the skull but had not been successful. To find DNA, Dr Fu had to take tiny samples of the plaque that had built up on Dragon Man's teeth. Previously, the only traces of Denisovans were small fragments of bone like these pieces found in Siberia which meant scientists didn't know what they might have looked like Who is Dragon Man? Dragon Man is the nickname for a skull found near Harbin City, China in 2018. Known officially as the Harbin Cranium, scientists determined that the skull did not belong to any known human ancestor species. Scientists gave it the titled Homo longi, meaning 'Dragon Man' after the Heilongjiang, or black dragon river, near where it was found. Scientists suspected that Dragon Man might have been a member of the Denisovan species of humans but could not confirm this. That was because the bones are so old that most traces of DNA have long since decayed. As plaque builds up it sometimes traps cells from the inside of the mouth, and so there could be traces of DNA left even after 146,000 years. When Dr Fu and her colleagues did manage to extract human DNA from the plaque, it was a match for samples of DNA taken from Denisovan fossils. For the first time, scientists now have a confirmed Denisovan skull which means they can work out what our lost ancestors actually looked like. The Dragon Man's skull has large eye sockets, a heavy brow and an exceptionally large and thick cranium. Scientists believe that Dragon Man, and therefore Denisovans, would have had a brain about seven per cent larger than a modern human. Reconstructions based on the skull show a face with heavy, flat cheeks, a wide mouth, and a large nose. However, the biggest implication of the Dragon Man skull's identification is that we now know Denisovans might have been much larger than modern humans. Dr Viola says: 'It emphasizes what we assumed from the teeth, that these are very large and robust people. This also confirms that Dragon Man was from an older lineage of Denisovans which dates back to the earliest records around 217,000 years ago, rather than from the late Denisovan line which branched off around 50,000 years ago 'Harbin [the Dragon Man skull] is one of, if not the largest human cranium we have anywhere in the fossil record.' However, scientists still have many questions about Denisovans that are yet to be answered. In particular, scientists don't yet know whether Dragon Man reflects the full range of diversity that could have existed within the Denisovan population. Dragon Man was probably a heavily-set, stocky hunter-gatherer built to survive the last Ice Age in northern China but Denisovan bones have been found in environments that weren't nearly as cold. Professor John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told MailOnline: 'Harbin gives us a strong indication that some of them are large, with large skulls. 'But we have some good reasons to suspect that Denisovans lived across quite a wide geographic range, from Siberia into Indonesia, and they may have been in many different environmental settings. 'I wouldn't be surprised if they are as variable in body size and shape as people living across the same range of geographies today.' THE DENISOVANS EXPLAINED Who were they? The Denisovans are an extinct species of human that appear to have lived in Siberia and even down as far as southeast Asia. The individuals belonged to a genetically distinct group of humans that were distantly related to Neanderthals but even more distantly related to us. Although remains of these mysterious early humans have mostly been discovered at the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, DNA analysis has shown the ancient people were widespread across Asia. Scientists were able to analyse DNA from a tooth and from a finger bone excavated in the Denisova cave in southern Siberia. The discovery was described as 'nothing short of sensational.' In 2020, scientists reported Denisovan DNA in the Baishiya Karst Cave in Tibet. This discovery marked the first time Denisovan DNA had been recovered from a location that is outside Denisova Cave. How widespread were they? Researchers are now beginning to find out just how big a part they played in our history. DNA from these early humans has been found in the genomes of modern humans over a wide area of Asia, suggesting they once covered a vast range. They are thought to have been a sister species of the Neanderthals, who lived in western Asia and Europe at around the same time. The two species appear to have separated from a common ancestor around 200,000 years ago, while they split from the modern human Homo sapien lineage around 600,000 years ago. Last year researchers even claimed they could have been the first to reach Australia. Aboriginal people in Australia contain both Neanderthal DNA, as do most humans, and Denisovan DNA. This latter genetic trace is present in Aboriginal people at the present day in much greater quantities than any other people around the world. How advanced were they? Bone and ivory beads found in the Denisova Cave were discovered in the same sediment layers as the Denisovan fossils, leading to suggestions they had sophisticated tools and jewellery. Professor Chris Stringer, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, said: 'Layer 11 in the cave contained a Denisovan girl's fingerbone near the bottom but worked bone and ivory artefacts higher up, suggesting that the Denisovans could have made the kind of tools normally associated with modern humans. 'However, direct dating work by the Oxford Radiocarbon Unit reported at the ESHE meeting suggests the Denisovan fossil is more than 50,000 years old, while the oldest 'advanced' artefacts are about 45,000 years old, a date which matches the appearance of modern humans elsewhere in Siberia.' Did they breed with other species? Yes. Today, around 5 per cent of the DNA of some Australasians – particularly people from Papua New Guinea – is Denisovans. Now, researchers have found two distinct modern human genomes - one from Oceania and another from East Asia - both have distinct Denisovan ancestry. The genomes are also completely different, suggesting there were at least two separate waves of prehistoric intermingling between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. Researchers already knew people living today on islands in the South Pacific have Denisovan ancestry.

‘City killer' asteroid on collision course with Moon could damage satellites
‘City killer' asteroid on collision course with Moon could damage satellites

The Independent

time4 days ago

  • The Independent

‘City killer' asteroid on collision course with Moon could damage satellites

New observations of the 'city killer' asteroid once thought to be on a collision course with the Earth indicate it will miss the planet but strike the Moon and pose 'potential danger' to satellites. Recent estimates of the building-sized space rock's trajectory suggest it has a 4 per cent chance of hitting the lunar surface in December 2032. Astronomers, including from the University of Western Ontario, estimate in a new study that such an impact may release energy equivalent to 6.5 megatons of TNT and produce a lunar crater nearly 1km in diameter. In comparison, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the US in 1945 produced explosive energy equivalent to nearly 0.015 megatons of TNT. A strike from the space rock, called 2024 YR4, could generate a lunar debris cloud weighing over 100,000,000kg, according to the yet-to-be peer-reviewed study. As much as 10 per cent of this debris could 'accrete to the Earth on timescales of a few days'. And, depending on the impact location of the asteroid on the Moon, the lunar ejecta could expose satellites to meteorites for years. 'Of primary concern are ejecta particles above the impact hazard threshold (0.1 mm) for satellites delivered directly to low Earth orbit on relatively short timescales – days to months – and that could pose a hazard to spacecraft," the study states. The risk posed to satellites would depend on several factors, including the location of the impact, size of the lunar crater, the amount of material ejected by the collision, and the size distribution of the escaped ejecta. Of these factors, the study notes, location of the impact was the most critical. 'Because the moon is orbiting the Earth at approximately 1km per second, for ejected material to reach Earth quickly, the impacting object needs to hit the trailing edge of the moon,' it says. The impact should also happen in a way that the ejected material's velocity 'largely cancels out the moon's orbital velocity'. The study simulates 10,000 clones of the asteroid taking different trajectories and in 410 of them, the space rock strikes the Moon. If the asteroid does strike the Moon, it is likely to do so in the southern hemisphere. Analysing the 410 potential impact scenarios reveals that there is a significant probability of a 2024 YR4 strike delivering 10 per cent of the impact debris to near-Earth space, posing risks to astronauts and spacecraft. 'This will all occur during the few days of maximum ejecta delivery from a 2024 YR4 impact," researchers say. Since the number of satellites orbiting the Earth is increasing exponentially, the debris may pose an even greater threat by 2032. 'Given the very large total exposed area for satellites by 2032,' the new study warns, 'it becomes possible that hundreds to thousands of impacts from mm-sized debris ejected by a lunar impact from 2024 YR4 will be experienced across the entire satellite fleet.' Based on the new findings, researchers call for measures being taken to safeguard the Earth from dangerous asteroids to be extended to protect the Moon.

Experts reveal challenge to Trump's Canada-funded 'Golden Dome'
Experts reveal challenge to Trump's Canada-funded 'Golden Dome'

Daily Mail​

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Experts reveal challenge to Trump's Canada-funded 'Golden Dome'

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