It is named after the mineralogist Herbert Smith (1872–1953) and was first found in 1972 in Chile.

[4] Herbertsmithite is associated with copper mineralization in syenitic porphyries and granites in Chile and in Triassic dolomite formations in Iran.

[2] Herbertsmithite has a vitreous luster and is fairly transparent with a light-green to blue green color.

[4] In 2012, the pure synthetic form of herbertsmithite was discovered to be able to exhibit the properties of a quantum spin liquid,[5] due to its Kagome lattice structure.

Optical conductivity observations[7] suggest the magnetic state in herbertsmithite is a type of emergent gauge field of a gapless U(1) Dirac spin liquid.