Feldspar · plagioclase · Mohs 6 to 6.5

Labradorite

From the ground to your hand

The same stone at four moments. Tap a photo of a listing to see it on Amazon.

1. 01 In the ground (step 1 of 4)

   

   Labradorite flashing blue inside anorthosite rock from Paul Island, Labrador, Canada, the land the stone is named after. Stonemasons call it Blue Eyes.

   Real specimen. Photo: Lysippos, CC BY-SA 3.0.

2. 02 The flash (step 2 of 4)

   

   Two polished labradorites in a shop in New Mexico: one blazes blue and gold, the other looks plain grey. Turn either one and they swap.

   Real specimen. Photo: Grendelkhan, CC BY-SA 3.0.

3. 03 Polished to own (step 3 of 4)

   

   A 700 g labradorite sphere: turn it and the blue rolls across the ball.

   Amazon listing photo. See it on Amazon

4. 04 Set (step 4 of 4)

   

   A labradorite statement ring in sterling silver.

   Amazon listing photo. See it on Amazon

Mineral

Plagioclase feldspar

Flash from

Thin layers inside that interfere with light

Hardness

6 to 6.5

Grown in labs?

No

Famous sources

Canada, Finland (spectrolite), Madagascar

Famous labradorite in museums

What the finest natural stones look like: real pieces in public collections. The whole gem museum.

Labradorite stories: the stone with the northern lights inside

True stories of labradorite, from the Moravian missionaries of Labrador to Finnish spectrolite and the Moon, each with its sources underneath.

The stone the Moravian missionaries sent home from Labrador

The Moravians were a Protestant church based at Herrnhut in Saxony. One of them, the Danish-born joiner Jens Haven, reached the Strait of Belle Isle in 1764, came back with three more missionaries in 1765, and in 1771 led a group of 14 who founded a mission on the northern Labrador coast and named it Nain.

Around 1770 the mission found boulders of a grey feldspar that flashed blue, green and other colours when it caught the light, and specimens were sent to Europe soon after. In Germany it became known as Labrador Stein; in England it was called Labrador stone and firestone. The mineral's type locality, the place it was first described from, is Paul's Island near Nain.

Accounts of the very first find differ. Some name Paul Island, others nearby Tabor Island, where a small quarry later worked the stone. Nain itself is still there: it is the northernmost permanent settlement in Newfoundland and Labrador, and most of its 1,204 residents (2021 census) are Inuit.

• First noticed by Europeans: about 1770
• Type locality: Paul's Island, near Nain
• Nain mission founded: 1771
• Early English names: Labrador stone, firestone

Sources: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikisource.org, rockngem.com, en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org

A name that took half a century to settle

Nobody in Europe knew quite what the Labrador stone was. In 1780 the German mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner, unable to work out its chemistry, described it as a mineral species of its own.

The answer came with the feldspars. In 1820 the feldspars albite and anorthite were described, and soon after the French mineralogist François-Sulpice Beudant showed that the Labrador specimens were a feldspar too and named them labradorite. By 1850 mineralogists treated it as the colour-flashing gem variety of that family.

Today labradorite is defined by its chemistry: a plagioclase feldspar, (Ca,Na)(Al,Si)4O8, with 50 to 70 percent of the calcium end member anorthite. It is triclinic, about 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale, and splits easily along its cleavage planes.

• Described by Werner: 1780
• Named labradorite: soon after 1820
• Group: plagioclase feldspar
• Anorthite content: 50 to 70 percent

Sources: rockngem.com, en.wikipedia.org

The northern lights locked in stone: a Labrador legend

This is a legend, not history. One version was written down by Jason Sikoak, an artist from Rigolet in Nunatsiavut, and published in Inuktitut Magazine (Issue 125, Summer 2019) by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. He introduces it as a story that was told to him.

In his telling, a powerful angakok, or shaman, wanted the northern lights for himself and trapped them in the rocks around his home on the northern Labrador coast, leaving a nearby community in darkness. A respected hunter went to ask him to let the lights go. When the angakok refused, the hunter killed him, but the spell did not break. So the hunter struck the brightest part of the rock with his harpoon. Some of the lights escaped back into the sky; the rest stayed in the stone, which, the story says, is what we call labradorite today.

Other versions are repeated on gem websites, including one in which the lights froze and fell to earth in a hard winter, but most do not say who told them or where they were recorded.

• Teller: Jason Sikoak, from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut
• Published: Inuktitut Magazine, Issue 125, 2019
• Hero's tool: a harpoon
• Status: oral legend, not history

Sources: itk.ca, rockngem.com

Why labradorite flashes: light bouncing between hidden layers

The Danish mineralogist Ove Balthasar Bøggild coined the word labradorescence and described it as the peculiar reflection of light from submicroscopic planes. Work by Lord Rayleigh in 1923 and Bøggild in 1924 began to explain it.

Labradorite crystallises hot, and if it then cools extremely slowly, its calcium-rich and sodium-rich parts separate into alternating sheets far thinner than a wavelength of light. In this Bøggild intergrowth the calcium-rich sheets are about 70 to 200 nanometres thick and the sodium-rich ones about 50 to 100. Light reflected from the stack of sheets interferes, much as it does in a soap film, and only some colours survive.

The colour depends on spacing: a pair of sheets about 150 nanometres thick gives blue, and thicker pairs move through the spectrum to red above about 250. Because the sheets lie in one orientation, the flash appears on one face and only at the right angle. A dark body, coloured by tiny iron oxide inclusions, makes it stand out; spectrolite from Finland is almost black.

• Word coined by: Ove Balthasar Bøggild
• Cause: interference from exsolution layers
• Blue: layer pairs about 150 nm
• Red: layer pairs over about 250 nm

Sources: en.wikipedia.org, gia.edu

Spectrolite: found while digging Finland's defence line

The Finnish geologist Aarne Laitakari (1890 to 1975) described spectrolite and looked for its source for years. In 1940 his son Pekka found a deposit at Ylämaa, in south-eastern Finland, while building the Salpa Line fortifications there.

A 2017 report by Paavo Härmä of the Geological Survey of Finland and Olavi Selonen says spectrolite is found only in the Ylämaa region and has been quarried as a gemstone since the end of the 1940s. It sits in six anorthosite areas inside the Wiborg rapakivi granite batholith, which is 1,615 to 1,646 million years old. Quarrying began in the early 1950s; from 1959 the stone was also cut in blocks under the name Labrador for monuments, gravestones and interiors, including the Bank of Finland in Rovaniemi.

In 1973 the first workshop in Ylämaa began cutting spectrolite for jewellery. The name is a brand for the Finnish material, although it is sometimes applied to labradorite from Madagascar. Production in Ylämaa had come to a halt by the end of the 2000s, according to the 2017 report.

• Deposit found: 1940, at Ylämaa
• Found by: Pekka Laitakari
• Rock age: about 1,615 to 1,646 million years
• First jewellery workshop: 1973

Sources: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, kivi.info

A new luxury for 1790s snuffboxes

Labradorite only reached European collectors in the 1770s and 1780s, and within twenty years jewellers were setting it in gold. The State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg has a gold snuffbox with labradorite made in the city in 1792 by the master I. Kayser.

Florence has one too. A Florentine snuffbox of labradorite and gold, made about 1790, is in the mineralogy collection of the city's Museo di Storia Naturale; its label records it as a gift from Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, on 1 July 1794.

A century later the stone was still a court gift. In 1896, the year of his coronation, the nobility of Kyiv presented Nicholas II with a labradorite dish and saltcellar mounted in silver by the Marshak firm, which are also in the Hermitage.

• Hermitage snuffbox: 1792, by I. Kayser
• Florence snuffbox: about 1790
• Florentine gift date: 1 July 1794
• Kyiv dish for Nicholas II: 1896

Sources: commons.wikimedia.org, commons.wikimedia.org, commons.wikimedia.org, en.wikipedia.org

Labradorite on Red Square

The stone version of Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow, designed by Alexey Shchusev, was finished in 1930 after sixteen months of building. It was decided to clad it in red granite together with black and grey labradorite, alongside marble and porphyry.

Inside, the walls of the descent are grey labradorite, and in the hall a band of black labradorite runs right round the room, with pilasters of red porphyry standing on it.

Labradorite-rich rock has gone into other public buildings too. In Finland, spectrolite quarried at Ylämaa was used in 1959 and 1960 for monuments, a savings bank facade, and the interior of the Bank of Finland in Rovaniemi.

• Architect: Alexey Shchusev
• Stone mausoleum finished: 1930
• Labradorite used: black and grey
• Paired with: red granite and porphyry

Sources: en.wikipedia.org, kivi.info

The rock under Nain is 1.3 billion years old

Labradorite from Labrador comes out of anorthosite, a rock made almost entirely (90 to 100 percent) of plagioclase feldspar. The Nain anorthosite crystallised 1.29 to 1.35 billion years ago and belongs to the Nain Plutonic Suite, which covers a vast area of northern Labrador. Big anorthosite bodies of this age usually have plagioclase of 40 to 60 percent anorthite, and some are quarried for labradorite as a gem and as building stone.

People have tried to make a business of it for over a century. Ralph Graham Taber opened a small quarry on Tabor Island in 1890 and shipped about eight tons to the United States before closing in 1896; the Smithsonian bought large display pieces from him in 1894. In the 1990s the Ten Mile Bay quarry near Nain began cutting the rock as Blue Eyes granite, which is actually anorthosite, and the Inuit sculptor Gilbert Hay began carving it. The quarry closed around 2010.

In 1975 Newfoundland and Labrador made labradorite its official mineral emblem.

• Host rock: anorthosite
• Nain anorthosite age: 1.29 to 1.35 billion years
• Tabor Island quarry: 1890 to 1896
• Provincial mineral emblem: 1975

Sources: en.wikipedia.org, rockngem.com, en.wikipedia.org, assembly.nl.ca

A cousin rock covers most of the Moon

Anorthosite, the plagioclase-rich rock that labradorite comes from on Earth, is the dominant rock of the lunar highlands, which make up about 80 percent of the Moon's surface.

The most famous piece is the Genesis Rock, sample 15415, picked up by the Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin at Spur crater in 1971. It weighs about 270 grams, is at least 4 billion years old, and is kept at the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility in Houston.

It is not labradorite, though. The Genesis Rock is made mostly of anorthite, the calcium-rich end of the same plagioclase series, while labradorite sits in the middle at 50 to 70 percent anorthite. Very old anorthosites on Earth are also mostly above 80 percent anorthite; the younger ones that yield labradorite are closer to 40 to 60.

• Lunar highlands: about 80 percent of the surface
• Genesis Rock: Apollo 15 sample 15415
• Age: at least 4 billion years
• Its feldspar: anorthite, not labradorite

Sources: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org

Oregon sunstone: labradorite with copper inside

Oregon sunstone is labradorite too. GIA reports that three mines in the high desert of eastern Oregon, Ponderosa in Harney County and Dust Devil and Sunstone Butte in Lake County, all produce copper-bearing labradorite, with about 70 percent anorthite, ranging from almost colourless through pale yellow to red and green.

The crystals grew in basalt lava. They sit as large crystals in flows erupted during widespread volcanism 15 to 17 million years ago, and they are scarce: each ton of basalt at the Dust Devil mine yields about one pound of rough. The copper is what gives the stones their colour and their coppery shimmer.

Oregon made sunstone its state gemstone on 4 August 1987. The Bureau of Land Management runs a public collection area north of Plush where anyone can collect sunstones for free, as long as it is not for sale or trade.

• Composition: about 70 percent anorthite
• Host rock: basalt, 15 to 17 million years old
• Yield at Dust Devil: about 1 lb per ton
• State gemstone: since 1987

Sources: gia.edu, en.wikipedia.org, blm.gov

Rainbow moonstone is really labradorite

True moonstone is an orthoclase feldspar with a soft blue-white glow. The gem sold as rainbow moonstone is something else: GIA describes it as transparent labradorite, a closely related feldspar, and calls the trade name a misnomer, although the trade has accepted it as a gem in its own right.

In 2024 GIA reported unusually fine rainbow moonstone from Andilamena, in the Alaotra-Mangoro region of north-eastern Madagascar, mined in 2023. Bear Williams of Stone Group Laboratories confirmed it by Raman spectroscopy as plagioclase within the labradorite variety. The stones were clear enough to facet, including a 9.30 carat oval.

Because rainbow moonstone is so transparent, its colour comes from deep inside the stone, while in nearly black spectrolite it shows at the surface. Madagascar is also a notable source of ordinary labradorite; the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium holds a large dark grey block with a bluish sheen from Ihosy, donated in 1978.

• Rainbow moonstone: transparent labradorite
• True moonstone: orthoclase feldspar
• Fine 2023 find: Andilamena, Madagascar
• Confirmed by: Raman spectroscopy

Sources: gia.edu, gia.edu, gia.edu, gia.edu, en.wikipedia.org, africamuseum.be

Real or fake: how to check a labradorite

Real labradorescence comes from layers inside the crystal, so the colour lies in patches and switches on and off as you tilt the stone. It shows best on one face; turned the wrong way, a fine piece can look plain grey. Not every labradorite flashes at all.

Hobby guides add a few checks: real stones often show straight parallel lines from crystal twinning, while coated glass tends to show a bright, even rainbow from every angle, and resin or polymer copies may glow under ultraviolet light. These are hints, not proof. A gem lab can settle it with refractive index (about 1.55 to 1.57 for labradorite) and specific gravity (2.68 to 2.72).

Watch the names too. Spectrolite is a brand name for Finnish material, sometimes used for Madagascar stone. And the blue-sheened Norwegian building stone sold as larvikite is a different rock: the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica already noted that its feldspar is of the orthoclase type, not labradorite.

• Hardness: 6 to 6.5
• Specific gravity: 2.68 to 2.72
• Flash: patchy and angle-dependent
• Larvikite: a different feldspar rock

Sources: gia.edu, en.wikipedia.org, howtofindrocks.com, en.wikipedia.org, en.wikisource.org, en.wikipedia.org

Labradorite through time

1. About 1,615 to 1,646 million years agoThe Wiborg rapakivi batholith forms in south-eastern Finland, including the anorthosite areas at Ylämaa that hold spectrolite. kivi.info
2. 1.29 to 1.35 billion years agoThe Nain anorthosite, home of Labrador's labradorite, crystallises in northern Labrador. en.wikipedia.org
3. 15 to 17 million years agoBasalt eruptions in Oregon carry the labradorite crystals now mined as Oregon sunstone. gia.edu
4. 1764Moravian missionary Jens Haven reaches the Strait of Belle Isle and meets Inuit at Quirpon. en.wikipedia.org
5. About 1770The Moravian mission in Labrador finds boulders of labradorite; specimens are sent to Europe soon after. en.wikisource.org
6. 1771Jens Haven and a group of 14 found the mission at Nain. The stone becomes known as Labrador Stein in Germany and Labrador stone or firestone in England. rockngem.com
7. 1780Abraham Gottlob Werner describes the Labrador stone as a separate mineral species. rockngem.com
8. About 1790A Florentine workshop makes a labradorite and gold snuffbox, later given by Ferdinand III on 1 July 1794. commons.wikimedia.org
9. 1792I. Kayser makes a gold and labradorite snuffbox in Saint Petersburg, now in the Hermitage. commons.wikimedia.org
10. Soon after 1820François-Sulpice Beudant shows the Labrador specimens are a feldspar and names them labradorite. rockngem.com
11. 1890 to 1896Ralph Graham Taber quarries labradorite on Tabor Island and ships about eight tons to the United States. rockngem.com
12. 1894The Smithsonian Institution buys large labradorite display specimens from Taber. rockngem.com
13. 1896The nobility of Kyiv give Nicholas II a labradorite dish and saltcellar for his coronation year. commons.wikimedia.org
14. 1923 and 1924Lord Rayleigh and Ove Balthasar Bøggild publish work explaining labradorescence. en.wikipedia.org
15. 1930Lenin's stone mausoleum is completed in Moscow, clad with red granite and black and grey labradorite. en.wikipedia.org
16. 1935Wilfred Grenfell sends a six-man expedition to survey the Tabor Island quarry and test-market labradorite. rockngem.com
17. 1940Pekka Laitakari finds the spectrolite deposit at Ylämaa while building the Salpa Line. en.wikipedia.org
18. Early 1950sQuarrying of spectrolite begins at Ylijärvi, Ylämaa. kivi.info
19. 1971Apollo 15 astronauts collect the Genesis Rock, a lunar anorthosite made mostly of anorthite feldspar. en.wikipedia.org
20. 1973The first workshop in Ylämaa starts cutting spectrolite for jewellery. en.wikipedia.org
21. 1975Newfoundland and Labrador names labradorite its official mineral emblem. assembly.nl.ca
22. 4 August 1987Oregon sunstone, a labradorite, becomes Oregon's state gemstone. en.wikipedia.org
23. 1990sThe Ten Mile Bay quarry near Nain opens, cutting labradorite-rich anorthosite sold as Blue Eyes granite. rockngem.com
24. 2024GIA reports fine rainbow moonstone from Andilamena, Madagascar, confirmed as labradorite. gia.edu

Did you know?

• The word labradorescence was coined by the Danish mineralogist Ove Balthasar Bøggild. en.wikipedia.org
• Labradorite's flash comes from layers inside the crystal: pairs about 150 nanometres thick reflect blue, and pairs thicker than about 250 nanometres reflect red. gia.edu
• Not every labradorite flashes, and some flashing plagioclase is actually a different feldspar, bytownite. en.wikipedia.org
• Labradorite is only 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale and has a perfect cleavage, so a hard knock can split it along a flat plane. en.wikipedia.org
• Labradorite has been the official mineral emblem of Newfoundland and Labrador since 1975. assembly.nl.ca
• Spectrolite is a brand name for labradorite mined in Finland, though it is sometimes used for stone from Madagascar. en.wikipedia.org
• Before it went into jewellery, Finnish spectrolite was sold in blocks under the name Labrador and used in 1959 for the interior of the Bank of Finland in Rovaniemi. kivi.info
• Rainbow moonstone is not moonstone at all but transparent labradorite. gia.edu
• Oregon sunstone is labradorite with copper inside, and about one pound of rough comes from each ton of basalt at the Dust Devil mine. gia.edu
• Anyone can collect Oregon sunstone for free at the Bureau of Land Management's public collection area north of Plush, Oregon, as long as it is not for sale. blm.gov
• Anorthosite, the rock labradorite comes from, is the main rock of the Moon's highlands, which cover about 80 percent of its surface. en.wikipedia.org
• The Blue Eyes granite cut near Nain, Labrador, is not granite but anorthosite, and its blue flash is labradorescence. en.wikipedia.org
• Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow has walls of grey labradorite in its descent and a band of black labradorite around its hall. en.wikipedia.org
• The Norwegian blue-sheened stone often mistaken for labradorite has a different feldspar, of the orthoclase type, as the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica pointed out. en.wikisource.org
• In England the first specimens from Labrador were called Labrador stone and firestone. rockngem.com

What to look for in labradorite

Photos of labradorite are taken at the best angle. Expect the flash to appear only when you tilt the piece; buy big polished faces for the most colour.

Where natural labradorite comes from

How it is cut

Lab labradorite is mostly machine-cut in calibrated sizes, which is why a cut lab stone costs little more than its rough. Fine mined stones are often native-cut to keep weight, then recut by precision cutters. See cuts from easiest to hardest and whether cutting your own is cheaper than buying cut.

What to buy

Checked in stock on October 10, 2026. Photos are the listings' own; prices are rounded.

The giants: the biggest labradorite you can buy

The heaviest and largest pieces we found on Amazon, all checked in stock on October 11, 2026. Weights and sizes are the listings' own. Photos are the listings' own; prices are rounded.

Giant piecesExtra large polished labradorite slabA big flat face shows the flash best.about $80on Amazon →Giant piecesJIC Gem class 1 labradorite upright stone, 2.3 to 2.5 lbabout $60on Amazon →Giant piecesLabradorite sphere with stand, 700 gAbout 500 ratings. Turn it and the blue flash rolls across the ball.about $60on Amazon →

The labradorite shop: 42 more pieces we trust

Every piece names the real stone and comes from a seller with a record, checked in stock on October 11, 2026. Photos are the listings' own; prices are rounded.

All 42Women2Earrings2Necklaces and pendants5Rings8Bracelets2Signet rings2Jewellery14Loose stones2Beads3Carvings and decor15Raw and tumbled4

Sort Our orderPrice, high to lowPrice, low to high

WomenAvicrafts labradorite ring, sterling silverAbout 220 ratings.about $30on Amazon →WomenLabradorite hexagon wrap pendantabout $24on Amazon →Carvings and decorLabradorite tower, 4.7 to 5.1 inabout $26on Amazon →Carvings and decorCarved labradorite winged skullabout $18on Amazon →Carvings and decorCarved labradorite wolf, 2.2 inabout $9on Amazon →Carvings and decorLabradorite palm stones, 1.5 to 2.7 inOver 2,600 ratings.about $9on Amazon →Raw and tumbledRaw labradorite, 1.25 to 2 inabout $6on Amazon →JewelleryNavya Craft labradorite ring, sterling silverA simple sterling silver ring set with a natural labradorite.about $25on Amazon →JewelleryKoral Jewelry delicate oval labradorite ring, sterling silverA slim, vintage-style silver ring with a small oval labradorite.about $25on Amazon →JewelleryKoral Jewelry pear labradorite ring, sterling silverA boho silver ring built around a pear-shaped labradorite.about $40on Amazon →JewelleryKoral Jewelry vintage gipsy labradorite ring, sterling silverA bolder silver setting with a larger labradorite, in the same maker's vintage style.about $60on Amazon →JewelleryMyhealingworld labradorite cocktail ring, dotted and rope silverA 12 mm round labradorite cabochon in a handmade solid sterling silver setting.about $40on Amazon →

Show all 42

Your kit for labradorite

Five tools that let you check what you bought (a loupe, a UV torch, locking tweezers, a gem box and a pocket scale), plus a turntable that spins your stone under the light the way jewellers show one. The full collector's kit.

In short

Labradorite grows over millions of years in the earth, or in hours to months in a lab. Both are real labradorite; the mined stone is rare and priced for rarity, the lab stone is priced for the cost of growing it. Buy lab to wear and enjoy, check the listing names the mineral, and test it when it arrives.

See our first pick: Labradorite sphere with stand, 700 g

Photo credits

• labradorite-blue-eyes-canada.webp: Lysippos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
• labradorite-polished-flash.webp: Grendelkhan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
• Product photos: Amazon listings, via the Amazon Product Advertising (Creators) API.

Amazon links are affiliate links (tag thegemtray-20): buying through them costs you nothing extra and supports the site. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.