New Delhi: A striking black iceberg has been spotted off the coast of Labrador, Canada, and scientists and social media users alike are shocked and intrigued. The bizarre image was first captured on camera by Hallur Antoniussen, a fisherman working aboard his shrimp trawler Saputi off Carbonear. While navigating icy waters last month, Antoniussen encountered an iceberg unlike any he had seen before: pitch-black in colour and diamond-shaped, which stood in stark contrast to the surrounding white and blue ice chunks.
Even though it was hard to gauge from aboard the trawler, the fisherman estimated that the iceberg was at least three times as big as a typical bungalow. Taking the unusual opportunity, Antoniussen dashed to his cabin, grabbed his phone, and took a picture that would soon become an internet sensation.
Most of the icebergs are white because of the presence of innumerable small air bubbles contained in the ice. They scatter all wavelengths of the light visible to the human eye and give the typical white or bluish colour. But when the ice gets compressed gradually, it loses its air bubbles and becomes clearer, even glassy at times.
According to some reports, dark or black icebergs are extremely rare and most often sign the presence of contamination. Soil, pebbles, or other dark substances can get incorporated into the ice as a glacier travels over the ground. This specific iceberg could have come from a glacier that calved off the coast near Greenland, says glaciologist Lev Tarasov of Memorial University.
Tarasov explained that as the iceberg travelled south through the Baffin Bay and along the Labrador coast, it gradually melted, revealing the darker, sediment-rich layers. Ninety per cent of the iceberg is submerged. What we’re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. The black material may have once been buried deeper within the ice mass, he stated.
The meeting provides both a visual treat and a scientific enigma, one that shows the intricacy of glacial processes and the dynamic nature of our plant’s icy frontiers.
When Antoniussen posted the picture, it spread rapidly online, attracting international interest. Social media users are overwhelmed by rumours. I’ve seen plenty of enormous icebergs, but never a black one wrote one of the icebergs. Another commented, “This is my first time seeing a black iceberg!” Others proposed theories, including one suggesting that the dark colour was due to a boulder resting atop the ice, possibly picked up by a glacier before calving into the ocean.
