Hey, thanks...

Yep, that blue is intense, and something about it triggers resistance in a lot of people--they're skeptical it can be real. But maybe it is. Orbital color images often show a bluish tinge to the dark areas, but I've always been skeptical because orbital images are usually made up of only two colors--red/blue from MGS, red/violet or red/grn-violet from Viking. Knowing that an image may be biased toward blue doesn't mean that any blue you see there isn't real, however.

I tend to think that the light material in the Spirit trench probably isn't an artifact of compression. I sometimes feel a duty to throw out alternatives, but subsurface material is the simplest explanation.

I reread my first paragraph and it struck me how inconsistent I'm being. I'm willing to consider electric blues and bright whites, but I absolutely and vehemently reject dayglo orange Mordor Mars. Maybe some "color consultant" (or a shrink) could explain the psychological nuances of those colors. Could it be as simple as associating blue with water?