Stone Bricks

Stone Bricks is one of the materials that are used in Strongholds. Stone Bricks have the same blast resistance as Brick or Cobblestone; a TNT block surrounded by either of these will only destroy one block in each direction. All variants of Stone Bricks have the same blast resistance. They can be mined with any pickaxe, but not by hand.

Cracked Stone Bricks is a variant of a Stone Bricks. It can be found in Strongholds. Its texture is a Stone Bricks texture modified to make it look cracked; however, this does not affect its blast resistance or mining time. It is obtainable by putting Stone Bricks into a Furnace (1.8), and can be used to craft other blocks the same way as regular Stone Bricks.

Mossy Stone Bricks is another variant of a Stone Bricks. It can also be found in Strongholds. Its texture is a Stone Bricks texture modified to add a mossy effect, much like moss stone. This item can be crafted as of snapshot 14w02a with a Vine and a Stone Brick.

Chiseled Stone Bricks is yet another variant of a Stone Bricks. It can be found in Jungle temples. It can be used to craft other blocks in the same way that Cracked and Mossy Stone Bricks can.

Naturally generated
Regular, cracked, and mossy Stone Bricks generate as part of strongholds, making up most of the walls, ceilings, and floors.

Three blocks of chiseled Stone Bricks generate as part of each Jungle Temple.

Usage
As Stone Bricks offer no real advantage over Cobblestone, their main use is decoration, and are commonly used as a building material for castles by many players, due to the medieval look not found in Stone and Cobblestone. They also have advantages over normal Bricks, as Cobblestone is much more common than Clay, and, when smelted, produces full blocks rather than individual Bricks: a stack of Stone Bricks requires only 8 coal to smelt, while a stack of Bricks requires 32.

As a crafting ingredient
Any mixture of regular, cracked, mossy, and chiseled Stone Bricks can be used to make Stone Bricks stairs and Stone Bricks slabs.

Trivia

 * Stone brick monster eggs always take longer to break with a pickaxe than regular stone bricks, but break by hand as quick as pistons for example.
 * In the code, cobblestone is named stonebrick. Stone bricks, however, are named stonebricksmooth.
 * The texture for stone bricks is also extremely similar to the game Metagun's stone bricks texture, made by Notch for Ludum Dare.
 * Strangely, when smelting Cobblestone blocks, the cracked form of stone, they turn into the smooth variant. Yet when smelting perfectly normal smooth Stone bricks they turn into a cracked variant. This may however be a reference to how rocks expand when heated, and this may have caused fissures making it crack.