The Raman spectra of shortite and barytocalcite complimented with infrared spectra have been used to characterise the structure of these carbonate minerals. The Raman spectrum of barytocalcite shows a single band at 1086 cm(-1) attributed to the (CO3)(2-) symmetric stretching mode, in contrast to shortite where two bands are observed. The observation of two bands for shortite confirms the concept of more than one crystallographically distinct carbonate unit in the unit cell. Multiple bands are observed for the antisymmetric stretching and bending region for these minerals proving that the carbonate unit is distorted in the structure of both shortite and barytocalcite.