In 1953, a paper by George Faust announced the discovery of a new carbonate mineral found in Currant Creek, Nevada (US). Faust acknowledged that the mineral probably had been discovered previously, but it had been misidentified as impure magnesite by W. E. Ford in 1917. Faust named the new mineral "huntite" in honour of his former teacher, Walter Frederick Hunt (1882–1975), Professor of Petrology at the University of Michigan. Faust carried out analyses of the mineral, and found amongst others that in differential thermal analysis huntite showed two endothermic peaks, which could be attributed to the dissociation of MgCO3 and CaCO3 respectively. Chemical analyses showed huntite to consist of Mg3Ca(CO3)4.
Huntite has been found in a variety of environments. For example, it occurs in the modern carbonate sediments of the tidal flats bordering the Persian Gulf, in seasonal salt lakes of Turkey, in various playa lakes of British Columbia (Canada), in lacustrine deposits of Greece and in modern sabkha sediments in Tunisia.
In 1962, huntite was first synthesized by Biedl and Preisinger in experiments conducted at 100 °C and 3.2 bar CO2 pressure.
In 1983, Oomori et al. claimed laboratory synthesis of huntite at 33 °C when adding a sodium carbonate solution to concentrated seawater saturated with calcium bicarbonate.
In 2006, Zaitseva et al. noted the precipitation of huntite at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. In laboratory experiments originally intended to synthesize magnesium calcite, they had added cultures of Microcoleus chtonoplastes (cyanobacteria) to seawater brine. After 10 months of continuously shaking the samples, they found huntite, magnesite, and aragonite.
In 2012, Hopkinson et al. synthesized the mineral at 52 °C by reacting magnesium calcite with nesquehonite (MgCO3·3H2O).
A mineral with exactly the same composition as that of huntite has been known for more than 200 years; in 1812 for example, John and Stromeyer described it as having a chemical composition of CaCO3:MgCO3 = 1:3. In those days the mineral was known as conite (in German: Konit); a name given to it by Retzius (1798). However, a serious problem concerns where the mineral conite can be found. Originally, Retzius had found the new carbonate in a mineral collection and recognized it as a new species because it was harder than any known carbonate (even so hard that it would spark when struck with steel). Still, no indication was given regarding where this conite had been found. Some papers describing conite are known, without the exact location where it can be found. In 1804, Ludwig stated that the sample of conite studied by him, came "from Iceland". In 1805 Leonhard wrote that the conite he had analyzed, came "from Scandinavia". Somewhat more exact was Stromeyer in 1812, who claimed that his sample of conite had been found near the village of Frankenhayn, on the eastern slope of the Hoher Meissner near Kassel, Germany. However, this conite had been found as a loose boulder, and no outcrop of the new mineral was mentioned. In 1833, Blum summed up how conite could be found in mines near Freiberg (Germany), as boulders on the slopes of Mount Meissner (Germany) and on Iceland. In 1849, Hirzel repeated that conite could be found on the eastern slope of Mount Meissner, and in 1882, Schrauf reported the mineral from the magnesite deposits on the borders of the Schöninger Bach at Křemže near Budweis, Czech Republic.
Because of the absence of a type locality for the mineral conite, a historical priority of its description over that of huntite cannot be claimed.
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