All of the current ores as of the Caves & Cliffs update
Ores isolated down to stone
The figures show the ore distribution by layer in Java Edition 1.18.2
This graph shows the actual amount of ancient debris found in a relatively small but untapped world as of Java Edition 20w06a
Ore distribution introduced in 1.18
An ore is any uncommon rock-type block used to obtain specific resources.
Usage[]
Ore blocks are primarily collected for crafting purposes, such as for tools, weapons, armor, and redstone circuits. Refined ore can also be combined to create a block of the material's type.
Most ores drop their resource when mined, and require a Silk Touch pickaxe to drop themselves.
- Coal, diamond, emerald, their respective deepslate variants, and nether quartz ores drop 1 unit of their corresponding material.
- Iron, gold, and their respective deepslate variant ores drop 1 unit of their raw form.
- Copper and deepslate copper ores drop 2-5 raw copper.
- Redstone and deepslate redstone ores drop 4–5 redstone dust.
- Lapis lazuli and deepslate lapis lazuli ores drop 4–9 lapis lazuli.
- Nether gold ore drops 2–6 gold nuggets.
- Ancient debris is the exception; it drops itself when mined and must be smelted to obtain netherite scrap.
Smelting ingredient[]
| Ingredients | Smelting recipe |
|---|---|
| Any ore + Any fuel | |
| Raw Iron or Raw Copper or Raw Gold + Any fuel |
Ores can be smelted faster using a blast furnace.
It is not efficient to mine with Silk Touch and then smelt an ore block that normally drops multiple pieces of its resource, because smelting these ores yields less experience and only 1 piece of the resource. Nether gold ore is the only exception, as each ore block drops an average of 8.8 gold nuggets even when mined with Fortune III, which is less than a guaranteed gold ingot obtained from smelting the ore obtained using Silk Touch.
Note Blocks[]
All types of ores can be placed under note blocks to produce "bass drum" sounds.
Distribution[]
The following is the distribution of ores according to the altitude (layers are number of blocks above the lowest layer of bedrock) in the Overworld and the Nether. For detailed generation, see Ore (feature).
Overworld[]
| Coal[a] | Copper | Lapis Lazuli | Iron | Gold | Redstone | Diamond | Emerald[b] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stone variant |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| ||
| Deepslate variant[c] |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| ||
| Raw resource |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| ||
| Refined resource | 
|
|
| |||||||
| Manufactured product | - | - | 
|
|
|
- | - | - | ||
| Mineral block |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| ||
| Raw mineral block | 
|
|
| |||||||
| Minimum pickaxe tier required | Wooden | Stone | Iron | |||||||
| Found in biome | Any | Dripstone Caves[d] |
Any | Badlands[e] | Any | Mountains Windswept Hills | ||||
| Abundance | Very common | Common | Very common | Uncommon | Common | Rare | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Uncommon |
| Total range | 0 to 320 | -16 to 112 | -64 to 64 | -64 to 320 | -64 to 32 | -64 to 256 | -64 to 16 | -16 to 320 | ||
| Most found in layers | 44, 95 and 136 | 48 | -1 | 15 and 232 | -16 | 32 to 256 | -59 | 236 | ||
| None at layers | -64 to -1 | -64 to -17 and 113 to 320 | 65 to 320 | 73 to 79 | 33 to 320 | 257 to 320 | 15 to 320 | 16 to 320 | -64 to -17 | |
The Nether[]
| Nether Quartz | Nether Gold | Ancient Debris | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ore block | 
|
|
|
| Raw resource | 
|
| |
| Refined resource |
|
| |
| Manufactured | - |
|
|
| Mineral block | 
|
|
|
| Minimum pickaxe tier required |
Wooden | Diamond | |
| Found in biome | Any Nether | ||
| Abundance | Very Common | Common | Very Rare |
| Most found in layers | 10-114 | 15 | 13-17[f] |
| Commonly up to layers | 120 | 95 | 23 |
| Rare on layers | 123-125 | 96-116 | 22-119 |
| None at or above | 128 | 117 | 120 |
- ↑ This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in blobs and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.
- ↑ Instead of multi-block blobs, emerald ore is placed in scattered blocks.
- ↑ Deepslate variants only generate in the deepslate under layer 0.
- ↑ Copper ore blobs generate in larger sizes in this biome.
- ↑ Gold ore has increased frequency in this biome.
- ↑ Unlike most other ores, ancient debris' frequency peaks at layer 15, and quickly tapers off above and below.
History[]
| Java Edition Classic | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 21, 2009 | Notch shows interest in adding ores. | ||||
| 0.0.14a | May 23, 2009 | Added Coal Ore, Iron Ore and Gold Ore. They can be found in veins of two hundred on average. | |||
| release | Ores could be found exposed only in amounts ranging from roughly 10 to 30 in a blob. | ||||
| 0.26 SURVIVAL TEST | Mining an ore now gives the corresponding block of it. | ||||
| Java Edition Indev | |||||
| 0.31 | 20100128 | Added Diamond Ore. | |||
| 20100201-2 | Ores can no longer be mined without a pickaxe. | ||||
| Java Edition Infdev | |||||
| 20100320 | Random ores are now placed randomly around the world. | ||||
| 20100327 | Ores now replace stone upon a world reload. | ||||
| 20100330 | The change of replacing stone upon a world reload has been reverted. | ||||
| Java Edition Alpha | |||||
| v1.0.1 | Added Redstone Ore. | ||||
| Java Edition Beta | |||||
| 1.2 | Added Lapis Lazuli Ore. | ||||
| Increased the sizes of iron and diamond ore blobs. | |||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.0.0 | Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4 | Coal, lapis lazuli, redstone, and diamond ore now also drop as ore blocks with Silk Touch. | |||
| May 21, 2012 | Jeb released a screenshot of himself testing the trading system,[1] showcasing Ruby Ore.[2] | ||||
| 1.3.1 | 12w21a | Added Emerald Ore, which replaced Ruby ore. | |||
| 12w22a | All ores (except iron and gold) now drop experience points when mined. | ||||
| 1.5 | 13w01a | Added Nether Quartz Ore. | |||
| 1.16 | 20w06a | Added Ancient Debris. | |||
| 20w11a | Added Nether Gold Ore. | ||||
| 20w12a | Nether gold ore now drops gold nuggets instead of itself. | ||||
| October 3, 2020 | Copper ore is revealed at Minecraft Live 2020. | ||||
| 1.17 | 20w45a | Added Copper Ore. | |||
| February 17, 2021 | Henrik Kniberg showcases deepslate (then grimstone) variants of Overworld ore. | ||||
| 21w08a | Added Deepslate Iron Ore, Deepslate Gold Ore, Deepslate Diamond Ore, Deepslate Redstone Ore and Deepslate Lapis Lazuli Ore. | ||||
| 21w10a | Added Deepslate Coal Ore, Deepslate Emerald Ore and Deepslate Copper Ore. | ||||
| They don't generate in Survival mode as they are intended for map and datapack creators use. | |||||
| Fossils that generate below Y=0 now generate with deepslate diamond ore. | |||||
| 21w14a | If iron, gold and copper ores are broken without Silk Touch, they will drop raw metal instead. | ||||
| 21w16a | Deepslate emerald ore now generates naturally. | ||||
| Added ore veins in the prototype data pack, which contain copper ore and deepslate iron ore. | |||||
| 21w17a | Deepslate coal ore and Deepslate copper ore now generate naturally. | ||||
| 1.18 | Experimental Snapshot 1 | Deepslate emerald ore and deepslate coal ore no longer generate naturally. | |||
| 21w40a | Deepslate emerald ore can now generate naturally. | ||||
| 21w44a | Deepslate coal ore can now generate naturally, again. | ||||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| v0.1.0 | Added Coal Ore, Iron Ore, Gold Ore, Diamond Ore, Redstone Ore and Lapis Lazuli Ore. | ||||
| v0.3.0 | Coal ore now drops coal. | ||||
| Lapis lazuli ore now drops lapis lazuli. | |||||
| v0.3.2 | Diamond ore now drops a diamond. | ||||
| Iron and gold ores are now smeltable into ingots. | |||||
| v0.8.0 | build 1 | Redstone ore now drops redstone dust. | |||
| v0.9.0 | build 1 | Added Emerald Ore. | |||
| v0.12.1 | build 1 | Added Nether Quartz Ore. | |||
| Mining ores now gives experience. | |||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.16.0 | beta 1.16.0.51 | Added Ancient Debris. | |||
| beta 1.16.0.57 | Added Nether Gold Ore. | ||||
| Caves & Cliffs (experimental) | beta 1.16.210.57 | Added Copper Ore. | |||
| 1.16.210 release | Removed Caves & Cliffs toggle, which removes copper ore. | ||||
| beta 1.16.220.50 | Re-added Copper ore. | ||||
| beta 1.16.220.52 | Copper ore can no longer be randomly rotated. | ||||
| 1.16.220 release | Removed Caves & Cliffs toggle, which removes copper ore again. | ||||
| beta 1.16.230.50 | Re-added Copper ore. | ||||
| 1.17.0 | beta 1.16.230.52 | Added Deepslate Coal Ore, Deepslate Copper Ore, Deepslate Iron Ore, Deepslate Gold Ore, Deepslate Diamond Ore, Deepslate Redstone Ore, Deepslate Lapis Lazuli Ore and Deepslate Emerald Ore | |||
| Ore is generated as normal, when the ore is generated where Deepslate has been generated, deepslate ore is generated instead. | |||||
| beta 1.17.0.50 | If iron, gold and copper ores are broken without Silk Touch, they will drop raw metal instead. | ||||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU1 | CU1 | 1.00 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | Added Coal Ore, Iron Ore, Gold Ore, Diamond Ore, Redstone Ore and Lapis Lazuli Ore. |
| TU7 | All ores (except iron and gold) now drop experience points when mined. | ||||
| TU14 | 1.04 | Added Emerald Ore and Nether Quartz Ore. | |||
| TU43 | CU33 | 1.36 | Patch 13 | ||
| New Nintendo 3DS Edition | |||||
| 0.1.0 | Added Coal Ore, Iron Ore, Gold Ore, Diamond Ore, Redstone Ore, Lapis Lazuli Ore, Emerald Ore and Nether Quartz Ore. | ||||
Issues[]
Issues relating to "Ore" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia[]
- Since it is exclusive to only two categories of overworld biomes (mountains and windswept hills), emerald ore is actually rarer than ancient debris per chunk.
- The texture of ores were changed in 1.17 to make them distinct for color blind players.[3]
Gallery[]
All of the current overworld ores, including deepslate variants.
Naturally generated Diamond Ore, Redstone Ore and Lapis Lazuli Ore found in a canyon. Check the image for seed and coords.
Multiple ores found in one cave.
Several types of ore in a ravine.
Some ore being mined.
This graph shows the actual amount of ores found in a relatively small but untapped world as of Java Edition 1.12.2.
The pre-caves & cliffs ore textures.
Caves and Cliffs development[]
21w07a texture comparison.
The now and soon texture comparison of the ores and their deepslate variants (Before 21w08a).
Normal ores generating within deepslate (before the addition of deepslate ores).
Early deepslate ore textures.
An image showing another texture for deepslate diamond ore which improves on blending the ore texture with the base deepslate.
An image showing another texture for deepslate Diamond Ore which improves on blending the ore texture with the base deepslate.
More ore texture revisions.
More ore texture revisions.
An image showing new iron and diamond texture.
21w08a texture comparison.
21w10a texture comparison.
Ore distribution in 21w07a.
Ore distribution in 21w08a/21w08b.
Ore distribution in 21w10a.
Ore distribution in 21w18a.
References[]
- ↑ "... and this is why I'm playing with Testificates: (work in progress, as usual)" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on X, May 21, 2012
- ↑ snapshot 12w21a/b lang/en_US.lang: tile.oreRuby.name=Ruby Ore
- ↑ "Adjusted the new ores. If you are color blind, please give feedback - and state what kind of color blindness you have :)" – @JasperBoerstra (Jasper Boerstra) on X, February 18, 2021