Ikaite

Ikaite is the mineral name for the hexahydrate of calcium carbonate, CaCO3·6H2O. Ikaite tends
to form very steep or spiky pyramidal crystals, often radially arranged, of varied sizes from
thumbnail size aggregates to gigantic salient spurs. It is only found in a metastable state and
decomposes rapidly by losing most of its water content once removed from near-freezing water.
This "melting mineral" is more commonly known through its pseudomorphs.
It is usually considered a rare mineral, but this is likely due to difficulty in preserving samples. It
was first discovered in nature by the Danish mineralogist Pauly[5] in the Ikka (then spelt Ika)
fjord in southwest Greenland, close to Ivittuut, the locality of the famous cryolite deposit.[6][7]
Here ikaite occurs in truly spectacular towers or columns (up to 18 m or 59 ft tall) growing out of
the fjord floor towards the surface water, where they are naturally truncated by waves, or
unnaturally by the occasional boat.[8][9] At the Ikka Fjord, it is supposed that the ikaite towers
are created as the result of a groundwater seep, rich in carbonate and bicarbonate ions,
entering the fjord bottom in the form of springs, where it hits the marine fjord waters rich in
calcium.[9] Ikaite has also been reported as occurring in high-latitude marine sediments at
Bransfield Strait, Antarctica;[10] Sea of Okhotsk, Eastern Siberia, off Sakhalin;[11] and Saanich
Inlet, British Columbia, Canada. In addition it has been reported in a deep sea fan off the Congo,
and therefore probably has worldwide occurrence. The most recent occurrence has been
reported by Dieckmann et al. (2008).[12] They found the mineral ikaite directly precipitated in
grain sizes of hundreds of micrometers in sea ice in the Weddell Sea and throughout fast ice off
Adélie Land, Antarctica. In addition, ikaite can also form large crystals within sediment that grow
to macroscopic size, occasionally with good crystal form. There is strong evidence that some of
these marine deposits are associated with cold seeps.[13] Ikaite has also been reported as a
cryogenic deposit in caves where it precipitates from freezing carbonate-rich water.[14]
Ikaite crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system in space group C2/c with lattice parameters
a~8.87A, b~8.23A, c~11.02A, β~110.2°.[15][16] The structure of ikaite consists of an ion pair of
(Ca2+CO32−)0 surrounded by a cage of hydrogen-bonded water molecules which serve to
isolate one ion pair from another.