Speaker
Description
The Central European Volcanic Province (CEVP) comprises Cenozoic mafic to alkaline volcanic fields distributed across Central Europe and offers a broad compositional range relevant to planetary analogue research and to the development of European Lunar and Martian simulants. This study systematically evaluates CEVP volcanic sub region lithologies as petrological, geochemical and/or mineralogical analogues of Martian volcanic terrains, and potential additional feedstocks for lunar-Martian analogue/simulant materials. Published whole-rock geochemical and mineralogical datasets are compiled and compared with in-situ Martian compositions characterized at Gale, Gusev and Jezero Crater, and SNC meteorites. Comparability is quantified using compositional Figure-of-Merit (FoM) (ISO 10788:2014) approaches adapted from Tovar et al. (2026), complemented by petrological classification and mineralogical comparison. The lunar component extends previous work by Przylibski et al. (2024) and Szczęśniewicz et al. (2026) on Lower Silesian volcanic rocks by screening additional CEVP lithologies for correspondence with mare-basalt/regolith compositions and suitability as regolith-simulant feedstocks. This framework aims to constrain candidate petrological Martian analogue sites within the CEVP and complement available simulants/analogs with additional potential terrestrial feedstocks that can further aid and diversify simulant development and ISRU research. Acknowledgements: This study financed by the Europäischen Sozialfonds (ESF) Plus in Sachsen (SAB-Application number: 100670490). The authors wish to thank Mr. Roland Würkert and Dr. Axel Renno of Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) - HZDR for their support.