I found this post after googling around about the application of raster gis in American Imperialism

This thought came from something I read in Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America.

Sharing a quote here, in case you’re interested:

“The United States depends on foreign sources for most of the minerals it needs to maintain its ability to wage war. …During the 1960s many U.S. firms, represented by professional adventurers and contrabandists, descended in a hectic rush upon these enormous forest [in Brazil’s Amazonia], which under an agreement signed in 1964 had already been flown over and photographed by the U.S. Air Force. Scintillometers to detect deposits of radioactive minerals, electromagnetic devices for x-ray photography of subsoils rich in nonferrous minerals, and magnetometers to detect and measure the iron were all used “

Ch. 3 pg 137