Labradorite was named by by Moravian missionaries who found it in Labrador, Canada in 1770. However, it was known by the Red Paint people of Maine for over a thousand years. According to a legend of the Inuit people...s, Labradorite fell from the Aurora Borealis.
The stone is usually gray or green-gray, but rarer varieties include include Golden Labradorite, a transparent gold or champagne-color, and Spectrolite, which exhibits the entire color spectrum and was discovered in Finland in the 1940s.
Labradorite is a member of the Feldspar family and is valued for its beautiful play of color, known as labradorescence. The stone has layers that refract light in flashes of blue, green, and more rarely a gold or coppery red.