Show the source.
Link factual claims to their publications. Keep dates, study boundaries, and the scale of the evidence visible.
ABOUT / RESIDUAL AFTERMATH
The aftermath
is still happening.
We study what remains after the event has become history.
Residual Aftermath is an initiative by Carrie A. Shuster focused on the environmental legacies of warfare. It connects research, environmental forensics, and public writing to ask a persistent question: what happens to the materials, landscapes, and living systems left behind?
Watch the introductionOpen the presentation
THE PURPOSE
Follow the evidence.
Keep asking.
The end of fighting does not settle what happens to a contaminated beach, a damaged habitat, or a residue buried in sediment. Those questions require measurement, historical context, and attention to how environmental processes unfold.
Residual Aftermath makes that work accessible. The site introduces warfare ecology, connects readers to published studies, and explains the difference between detecting a substance and demonstrating its source, movement, persistence, or effect.
Our focus includes military preparation and training, active conflict, disposal, and postwar legacies. Environmental consequences can emerge across all of these settings.
THE RESEARCHER
Carrie A.
Shuster
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCHER
U.S. NAVY VETERAN
From troubleshooting aircraft to investigating what military activity leaves behind.
Carrie served as an aircraft electrician and troubleshooter on F/A-18E/F Super Hornets with VFA-102, the Diamondbacks, aboard USS George Washington. That experience informs her interest in the materials, maintenance demands, and environmental consequences of military systems.
Her environmental research includes legacy contamination on Iwo Jima, coastal marsh change in northern Mission Bay, and the environmental fate of warfare-related residues. Her work brings together environmental forensics, spatial analysis, historical records, and evidence synthesis.
Her published article, Black Sands of Iwo Jima: How the Past Can Improve the Future of Warfare, examines heavy metal contamination in sand from Iwo Jima’s Invasion Beach.
Read the Iwo Jima paper ↗Environmental Forensics, 26(3), 393–411 (2025); first published online in 2024.
HOW WE COMMUNICATE SCIENCE
Claims should have
something behind them.
Say what is known.
Distinguish observations from interpretations and proposed mechanisms. Missing evidence is not evidence that a process cannot occur.
Keep the limits.
Separate published findings from work in progress. Avoid presenting provisional screening or coding decisions as established environmental facts.
CONTACT / RESIDUAL AFTERMATH
Questions, ideas,
and collaboration.
Get in touch about research, collaborations, publications, or equipment support.
For inquiries about Residual Aftermath and its work on the environmental legacies of warfare, email us directly.
residual.aftermath@gmail.com ↗CONTINUE EXPLORING
Research worth reading.
Questions worth keeping.
Start with the warfare ecology field guide and publication collection, or explore Carrie’s public writing on the environmental consequences of military activity.
SUBSTACK MEMBERSHIP
Support the writing
and research.
A paid subscription supports Carrie’s public writing and research work. See available plans and paid posts on Substack, where membership and billing are managed.
Become a member on Substack ↗Already subscribed? Sign in and read on Substack ↗. Membership does not unlock pages on this website; its public resources remain freely accessible.
Photo credits and provenanceCreators, locations and reuse information
IMAGE PROVENANCE
Know what a photograph can establish.
Images provide context. Captions should identify the creator, place, date, original source and reuse basis separately from the person who supplied a copy.
- Homepage: Deir al-Balah, Gaza, 7 August 2024
- Photograph by Ashraf Amra / UNRWA, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. The display copy is resized and compressed with the full frame retained. Original source and attribution. This historical scene does not establish present-day conditions or measured contamination. It replaces the previously supplied urban aerial, whose provenance remains unresolved.
- Iwo Jima annotated historical map
- Supplied by Carrie A. Shuster; the image is labeled as based on a September 1944 G-2 beach map. The original archival identifier, creator of the annotations and reuse basis remain unrecorded.
- Iwo Jima historical aerial
- Supplied by Carrie A. Shuster; the image margin is labeled July 1944. The original archival identifier, creator and reuse basis remain unrecorded.
- Iwo Jima photo story and specimen photographs
- Original uploads supplied by Carrie A. Shuster on 22–23 October 2026. The jar and coastline have corresponding presentation credits to Shuster (2009 and 2011); uploaded-file capture dates are not independently verified. The newer historical beach photograph and map composites still need original archival identifiers, dates and reuse documentation. Specimen photographs show appearance, not measured chemistry. See individual captions and full-size images ↗
- Research presentation photograph
- Supplied by Carrie A. Shuster and used at her request. The photographer and event date are not yet recorded; supplying an image is not itself proof of copyright ownership.
- Coastal-wreckage photograph
- Copy supplied by Carrie A. Shuster and displayed in the visual collection. Original creator, location, capture date, original source and reuse basis are not yet verified. Visible wreckage does not identify a contaminant or its source. See the visual collection ↗
- Licensed documentary collection
- Each photograph has its own creator, date, source link and license in the documentary collection. These are historical scenes, not live conditions.
To complete an entry, provide the original source or archive record, photographer credit, date and permission or license information. Send an image-source correction ↗