Mawson food store found in Antarctic

(AAP) - A cache of food left by the 1911-14 Antarctic expedition led by explorer Sir Douglas
Mawson has been found after almost a century in polar cold storage.
The cache of flour and pemmican in calico bags and a tin was located this week at
Madigan Nunatak, an exposed rocky peak surrounded by ice about 70km east-south-east
of Cape Denison.

The nunatak is named after Cecil Madigan, a geologist with Mawson's Australasian
Antarctic Expedition (AAE) who established the food store in case of emergency for
sledging parties.
The discovery was made by a small team of explorers led by Greg Mortimer, the first
Australian to climb Mt Everest.
"I have been trying to get to Madigan Nunatak for years," Mortimer said in a statement.
"This year we were in the right place at the right time.
"It was a tiny ridge in the white expanse of the polar plateau about 2,400 feet
above sea level.
"We observed a cairn surmounted by a tin consistent in shape and construction with
kerosene tins associated with the AAE.
"The tin contains at least three calico bags held in place by a rock."
One of the tins contains a white powder Mortimer believes is flour and another the
brown substance pemmican, which was a food mix favoured by the AAE on sledging runs.
The long bamboo pole which marked the spot for the AAE is still there but now lies
on the rocks.
Madigan's granddaughter, Julia Butler, is on Mortimer's expedition on the vice ship
the Marina Svetaeva which is carrying 100 passengers on an Antarctic cruise to
Mawson's Huts.
Mortimer, the managing director of Aurora Expeditions, flew by helicopter from the
Marina Svetaeva to the area around Madigan Nunatak to find the store.
Attempts to find Madigan Nunatak in the 1980s failed with ice covering the rocky
peak, while only the bamboo pole protruding from the cache was sighted in 1985.
Mortimer left the food store at the site near Cape Denison which was the AAE's base
for two years and is now being conserved by the Mawson's Huts Foundation.
The Mawson's Huts Foundation team is carrying out an extensive works program which
includes locating the first aircraft ever taken to the Antarctic and fitting out a
special laboratory to conserve the thousands of artefacts left inside the hut when
the AAE left for home in December 1913.