From Yahoo! News comes an interesting article (Iowa Scientist Helps Interpret Rover Data) with advice for all those on earth viewing rover images, especially field geologists!

In a series of tests in an Arizona desert, Thomas trained geologists on how camera distortion and resolution can fool even the best eyes.

As robots performed maneuvered across the desert floor, Thomas recorded the observations scientists made about the rocks, geologic features and other information transmitted by the robots.

Then next phase, which involved taking geologists to the field to compare first hand their observations with reality, yielded some surprising results, Thomas said. For example, the teams misinterpreted the depth of a stream bed, mistook a mound in the distance for a mountain and found rocks to be bigger, rounder and flatter than they actually were.

Yet the geologists hit the mark most of the time, with errors in judgment or a hypothesis accounting for just 5 percent overall, Thomas said.

They should run a field camp with this technique, especially if we do more robot geology.