information about Gitmo be kept locked up in some out-of-the-way place. But using Google Earth’s time slider, which calls up imagery from different dates, Myers saw significant growth in the prison’s footprint between April 2003 and November 2004. With another commercial satellite image from February 2008, he assembled a map of the holding pen’s expansion. His results were rock-solid, demonstrating the stunning potential of free satellite imagery—which was enough to get his paper published in the September issue of World Archaeology.

Aside from his academic interests, Myers says he was inspired by good old-fashioned American dissent. “The Bush years pissed me off, and Guantànamo pisses me off,” he says. But his work isn’t just about sticking it in the eye of the government. Myers hopes that new generations of archaeologists—both PhD and armchair—will use satellites to track physical changes over time, see places that are hard to reach, and monitor sensitive historical sites for looting.

Authors: Nate Berg

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