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 Post subject: Lonsdaleite
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 10:40 pm 
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Location: San Francisco
There are a couple threads on Linkedin referring to the mineral Lonsdaleite.
Although the premise of the threads was that Lonsdaleite was harder than diamond, that does not appear to be the case unless it is made synthetically.

But, how it occurs naturally is astoundingly interesting.

Lonsdaleite (named in honor of Kathleen Lonsdale), is an allotrope of carbon with an hexagonal xl structure. It forms when meteorites containing graphite strike the Earth.
The great heat and stress of the impact transforms the graphite into diamond, but retains graphite's hexagonal crystal lattice.
Lonsdaleite was first identified in 1967 from the Canyon Diablo meteorite, where it occurred
as microscopic crystals associated with diamond.

The hardness of Lonsdaleite is recorded as being 7-8 on Mohs Scale, as a result of it being heavily included with impurities.


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 Post subject: Re: Lonsdaleite
PostPosted: Sun Dec 21, 2014 3:31 pm 
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Great info, Barbra. Miss you...have a wonderful Christmas & Holiday season!!

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Ux4 ... Mo' later

John M. Huff
CenSat Enterprises


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 Post subject: Re: Lonsdaleite
PostPosted: Mon Dec 22, 2014 1:14 am 
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Hi John!
Right back at ya!

Great hearing from you!


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