Men Examining Limestone Outcrop, Latin America, 1950s

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Men Examining Limestone Outcrop, Latin America, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Men Examining Limestone Outcrop, Latin America, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-A9CCEE

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Some fifteen men in work shirts and caps have gathered at the base of a raw limestone escarpment, the kind of exposed sedimentary face that in the 1950s drew geologists, mining surveyors, and agricultural extension teams with equal enthusiasm and roughly equal certainty that what they were looking at was going to be useful. A few crouch to inspect something at ground level; one has climbed the rock face to get a better angle, which is the move of a man who has decided his theory is correct and is now looking for evidence. The 1950s were the decade when Latin American governments and international development agencies sent teams like this one into the field in great numbers, convinced that the continent's underdeveloped geology was a problem that could be solved by men standing in front of it and taking notes. Whatever they concluded that afternoon is long since filed in a ministry basement, but the escarpment has not changed its position.

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