Regarding the issue of using whiteout as a base for marking
specimens.
 
        No "empirical" study, but as an student working on a site in
eastern Oregon some years go, we marked basalt metates which were left
in situ with whiteout and sealed with clear nail polish.
 
        The next year, when we came back to the site, the whiteout spots
had popped off of several of the metates.  To me that seemed proof enough
that, in the long run, even in controlled conditions there was a shelf
life for whiteout.
 
Patricia Podzorski
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum
UC Berkeley