Dark Labradorite – The Fire Stone

DARK LABRADORITE - The Fire Stone

The legend behind Dakota Stones Dark Labradorite is one you can tell your children and grandchildren when they ask about the beautiful piece of jewelry you’ve created using these rare stones. The story goes something like this:

Long ago, when the days and nights were filled with battles between earthly men and the mythical gods they worshipped, an Eskimo warrior of the Inuit people gazed upon the beautiful Aurora Borealis and coveted it for himself. This warrior took hold of his mighty spear, that had never seen defeat in battle, and leapt high into the sky, releasing it into the heavens until the weapon found the heart of the Aurora. His spear struck one of the billions of luminescent rocks hanging in the sky and shattered it into an uncountable number of smaller stones that fell to the earth for his people to collect and admire for themselves.

This story, or similar versions of it, were told for centuries until the 1770s when a group of geologists “discovered” these stones in the Canadian province of Labrador on the Isle of Paul and renamed what the indigenous people referred to as fire stones, Labradorite.

Watch our Labradorite Vlog with Ricky!

Labradorite is composed of internal layers and has a colorful iridescence to its exterior as a result of light diffraction within these layers. Because of its uncommon appearance, labradorite is easy to identify. As the stone is turned, it reflects a bluish, white light referred to as adularescence, or, more commonly, labradorescence.

Labradorite is a mineral in the plagioclase series, and it shares many of the properties of plagioclase minerals. It has a Mohs hardness of about 6 to 6 1/2 and two distinct directions of cleavage that intersect at an angle of about 86 degrees or 94 degrees. Plagioclase minerals frequently exhibit twinning and striations on cleavage faces.

Even though labradorite is the only mineral in the plagioclase series that will show labradorescence, there are many specimens of labradorite that do not show any labradorescence at all. Without seeing labradorescence, distinguishing labradorite from other members of the plagioclase series can be difficult. The methods used for distinguishing them are x-ray diffraction, chemical analysis, optical tests, and specific gravity determinations on pure specimens.

Dakota Stones has received a new quantity of one of the rarer forms of labradorite that display a darker labradorescence, highlighting purples and deep blues. These dark labradorite stones will make a beautiful addition to your collection. The choice remains yours on how you prefer to tell the story behind these stones.

Personally, I tell everyone that I have the Northern Lights trapped inside the mythical stones in my possession!