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From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad Melodie Myers wrote > My question concerning the tapes is... can you glean specific information from > an analogue tape that has some age on it, not only an idea of when the tape > was manufactured, but where it might have been -- I've seen several post on > mold and other nastiness growing on these tapes on this discussion board. i.e. > Has someone come across something that is specific to a certain region and > would only be found with a tape stored in a particular environment? Say in the > South? I never encountered any of this in my travels with analogue tape, but > it occurred to me that many of you are not only archivist, but part time > research scientist and super sleuths. ----- this is really a forensic question and not one likely to be answerable by a forensic audio specialist. He or she would ask someone else in the department. Some kinds of dust are certainly distinguishable - the composition of mineral dust may indicate a more or less extensive stay in a particular location. The dust in a city is much more filled with carbon particles (exhaust) than dust in the countryside. Leaded gasoline will give a different kind of dust that may date the deposit (ban on lead). The location may have been somewhere in Australia or other places where asbestos of a particular composition is mined, or it may be a place where there has been a desert storm; the dust may be radioactive for that matter. The good thing about dust and dust distribution is that it will not change over time, whereas a biological trace may change over time. So, the best would have been if the tape had been played in a dusty atmosphere: particles trapped between tape layers. Otherwise: if the tape container has been left open for some time. I expect royalties if any of the above is found in your work. But then I expect that all these ideas have been used in C.S.I. anyway. Kind regards, George