In the year 1786 Moldavites were mentioned for the first time by Professor Josef Mayer from the Universität Prague in a scientifically paper. He named Moldavites as: "Crysolithen von Thein".

It comes a time with many wild classifications and theories. Names like Chrysolithe, Pseudochrysolite, Bouteillestone, Böhmian Emerald, Böhmian Obsidian were given. The todays accepted Name is Moldavite after the river Moldau in South Bohemia, Czech Republik. The Moldau river runs through the main deposits of Moldavites. In czech language the Moldau river is called Vltava. So the Czech Name for Moldavite is Vltavin.

Many scientists in these days belived, Moldavites are mad by a Volcanic eruption. The area of the known Moladvite localities were also famous for traditional Glassmanufakturing. That makes people think that Moldavites were just a dump of these Bohemian Glassartists.
The Problem was that Moldavites have no geological connection to their sediment in which they occur. Until the middle of the 20th Century nobody thought about a link to a Meteoritical event.

1961 a field trip to the Nördlinger Ries with two American Mineraligists CHAO und SCHOEMAKER will finde some proof. They sent stone samples to USA to analyse for high pressure minerals. And they found them! These high pressure Minerals are only known from Meteorite Impacts.
The Volcanic Crater "Nördlinger Ries" just turned to a Meteorite Crater. Today the Nordlinger Ries is one of the best studied Meteorite Crater worldwide.

With modern geochemical age dating methods it was possible to find out that Moldavites and the Ries Crater in Germany have the same age. With this link more examinations are done to compare the chemical composition of the Moldavites with the pre impact sediments of the Ries. Plenty of similaryties are found.