Lonsdaleite

While in Borders with Deb the other day, I came across a book called the Perfectly Useless Book of Useless Information. One of the useless facts state that lonsdaleite is 58% harder than diamonds. I jotted that down to remind myself to look it up because, well, maybe I would like to buy lonsdaleite one day.

The truth is that lonsdaleite is only harder than diamond in its pure form, which only exists as a simulation currently. Lonsdiete forms when meteorites containing graphite strike the Earth. The "heat and stress of the impact transforms the graphite into diamond, but retains graphite's hexagonal crystal lattice." It has also been synthesized in the lab.