 The studies of the Martian soil properties led to the development of JSC Mars-1 Martian regolith simulant at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1998.It contained palagonitic tephra with a particle size fraction of less than 1 millimeter.The palagonitic tephra, which is glassy volcanic ash altered at low temperature, was mined from a quarry at the Pu'u Nene cinder cone.