On a recent expedition to the northeast crest of Greenland , cave scientist Gina Moseley and her team of glacial explorers stumble upon an unexpected feast : 14 tin of intellectual nourishment , perfectly preserved by northern Greenland ’s cold , dry climate , that had been hidden by by members of another mission six decades ago . So the explorers did what anyone who ’d spent the last three weeks rust repetitious , flat camping rations would do : They ate them .
Moseley toldNational Geographicthat , while the cans take a range of culinary delicacy — admit meatballs , bean , and even live cocoa mix — the most exciting discovery was a can of biscuits and grape jam .
“ It was funny really , ” Moseley said . “ We had kilograms of porridge back at basecamp , so we were eating a lot of it — just dry Milk River gunpowder and porridge . It was courteous , but we were thinking ‘ some mess would be really nice in good order now . ’ And then Chris walk into the tent and he ’s catch some jam . ”
But the 55 - year - old cache represented more than just a welcome happy chance from a humdrum porridge diet . “ I suspect the people that were wipe out these tins and left these atomic number 50 might have been the citizenry who let out the caves , ” Moseley says . “ And they were the reason we were there in the first place . ”
The containers , stamped with “ 09 - 55 ” and “ 09 - 60 ” expiration appointment , match up with the 1960 expedition of William E. Davies of the Military Geology Branch and Daniel B. Krinsley of the U.S. Geological Survey from June 14 to July 1 that year . So allot toNational Geographic , it ’s probable that Moseley was , in fact , eating solid food from the very first expedition to the caves in that region . Though Moseley and her team are primarily interested in a different sort of history — they analyse paleo - clime records — the tin gave them a welcome taste of what it was like to go on that first expedition six 10 ago .
[ h / t : National Geographic ]
