Volcanic deposits from mount Etna (Italy) as high-fidelity lunar simulants for In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) applications

Terrestrial analogues of lunar regolith are crucial for developing In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technologies and testing mission hardware before lunar deployment. Mount Etna's (Southern Italy) diverse volcanic products, generated by complex slab-edge processes, offer exceptional compositional variability that encompasses both mare-like and highland-like lithologies, making it an ideal natural laboratory for planetary analogue studies. By investigating pyroclastic deposits and basaltic samples from the Cisternazza pit crater, and the Monte Nunziata and Tre Livelli lava tubes, we discovered that the sample from the Cisternazza pit crater exhibits remarkable chemical and mineralogical similarity to Apollo 14 highlands materials. The principal component analysis confirms its affinity with the lunar Fra Mauro formation samples, while X-ray diffraction reveals a plagioclase-pyroxene-olivine assemblage with 40 % amorphous phase mimicking lunar impact glass. VIS-NIR spectral signatures show characteristic 1-μm absorption features matching agglutinate-rich lunar regolith. Engineering geomechanical tests demonstrate that these materials achieve compressive strengths up to 16.40 MPa in earth environmental conditions when processed as alkali-activated materials, comparable to other lunar highlands simulants tested as reference materials for lunar construction. Our carbothermal reduction modeling indicates favorable oxygen and water extraction yields, validating Mount Etna volcanic deposits as high-fidelity simulants for advancing lunar ISRU technologies and mission preparation.