The sample register

Each jar should have carried a code linking it to an entry in the field notebook. During the journey back from the shore, four paper labels came loose and were found together at the bottom of a crate. Seawater had blurred the final digits on several other labels. One tray had tipped, rearranging the jars, so their order no longer matched the order of the notebook entries. One entry recorded the collection time but not the location. Two pages identified collectors only by their initials, although the key to those initials had been left at the field centre. The samples themselves all looked like similar grey sediment.

Describe the problems that make it hard to compile an accurate register of the samples. You may use brief quotations to support your answer.