Talk:Mineshaft

Generation
it looks like these shaft's are very common maby too much so they seam to run through the world like crzy cuting evey thing underground it to bit sized snacks even each other-Doom87er

erm what happened to these i mean pepole wo maked these shafts died? npc? i really dont get these things [mewtwoy]
 * First things first, please improve your grammer so that you are easier to understand, and second, Mojang is already working on making these less common --HexZyle 05:48, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

@Mewtwoy, i assume the cave spiders drove them out. That's why the whole place is covered in cobwebs; nobody went down there out of fear of being killed, and so the spiders adopted it as their home. As for who the NPCs were, well, either the testificates decided to expand, or He Who Must Not Be Named tampered with the generation code. Cosmicguy 20:02, 19 February 2013 (UTC)Cosmicguy

Another worldgen glitch that should be mentioned is that Ravines can cut through mine shafts. This would be totally epic, Mines of Moria-style, except that ravine generation appears to only take into account stone blocks and nothing else (alternately, mine shaft generation is called after ravine generation). So instead of seeing a complete ravine with mine shaft blocks on either side, you get hilariously floating wood planks. --WackoMcGoose 20:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone have any conformation of Mine Shafts having a surface entrance? Because even though they are abandoned, real life mine shafts have an entrance somewhere. Maybe they do somewhere, but I have yet to find the 'entrance' to one yet, or even hear about them.

Anybody come across a large square room with a dirt floor in/near their mineshaft? I've seen this in two of two shafts I've explored so far and confirmed they exist with another player. Digging up the floor produces nothing. Any idea what these are?

Yes, I've come across about 5 of them in the one I was talking about for the entrance above. I think it might just be a glitch in the spawning code. (IE: Circular rooms in cave systems) I found some iron underneath one of them, but I think that was just because of how deep the mine is underground. I have about 10 pictures of them to show if anyone needs to post some photos of them up for any references. The pictures section of this page is fairly skeletal for new players wanting to know what they look like. --User:K12machinima 1:34, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I can also confirm the strange empty rooms. I came across a few in my explorations. I assume it'll be a feature in the future. Its probably just skeleton code for the future when they will add something to these rooms(e.g. special dungeons, bosses, reward rooms, old farms left behind by the previous miners?, etc.). WallShadow 00:35, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I can confirm that these empty dirt-floored rooms have been in each abandoned mine shaft I've explored so far (1.7.4 to 1.7.10) - the layer of dirt seems to be one block high - sometimes has stone underneath it, sometimes has an ore or two, sometimes more dirt. I think the room doesn't extend below the one layer of dirt on the bottom and what I'm seeing there is just typical generation. (no login) - 18-Jul-2014

Per docs, every mine has a 'starting point' room. However, since (I assume) ravine happens after mine generation, it is not guaranteed to be intact. I just came across probably my fifth mine but the only one I've ever seen where the starting point room was cut in two by a small ravine. (no login) - 10 Feb 2016

"It is possible (but rare) to have one spawn in an Ocean Biome, causing the shaft to be flooded." Well I dont't think so. I have found several in the ocean biome and obviously I have only explored under ocean floor near islands. And they were not flooded. Those you are most likely to find are not likely to be flooded. Of course there is often some water flowing through, but not to the extent of hindering movement. Those are easy to block out. 85.78.xx.xxx 14:26, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

"It is possible (but rare) to have one spawn in an Ocean Biome, causing the shaft to be flooded." me and a friend just bought minecraft and i got lucky starting with a forest type biome. my friend got the ocean biom with one tree. He got lucky though because he found a mine shaft really fast. and it wasnt filled with water either. he found like 14 diamonds too. I have yet to find a mine shaft in my forest biome map. Because of this i dont think its rare on ocean biome for a mine shaft to appear.

Contents of Chests
Anyone have info on chests contents? It would be very useful to know the specifics instead of "etc.".

Here ya go: Pumpkin Seeds Melon Seeds Bread Iron pickaxe Diamond Gold ingot Iron ingot Lapis Lazuli redstone ore coal Gun Powder

They say that Pumpkin Seeds are harder to find then Melon seeds, but I think they are equally hard to find because I have not found and of both seeds on Creative or Survival (not that I have found one in any of my Survival Maps.) Yeah he is right those seem to be the only things available in Shafts. :P

Actually, Melon seeds are harder to find than Pumpkin seeds because if you ever stumble upon a bunch of pumpkins, you place one in the Crafting Table or your inventory crafting (the 2x2) it'll show up as a couple or few of Pumpkin Seeds. But, Melon seeds are the hardest to find due to the fact that they are only found in the chests located in Abandoned Mine Shafts. 12Kenzy 13:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you forgot to add in some comas and also forgot to add in And after coal. Minergamer1inonly (talk) 14:15, 10 November 2015 (UTC)Miner

Double spawners?
Well, I was flying about caves in creative and I came a croos a ravine. Cool, I though. I lit it with torches and noticed some wood. I forgot what they were called, so I came here to find out. It was an Abandoned Mine Shaft (Of course, because if it wasent I wouldnt be posting here now would I?) And I though OMG. I had never seen one before. So as I was exploring, I checked the page here and it sayed that all Abandoned Mine Shafts have cave spider spawners. I found one, and turned it on easy (Creepers, ok? On creative I play on peaceful :p) to see what they looked like. It was very angry that it couldnt hurt me. So I lauged, turned it back on peaceful. So I turn around, and I see light. Lava light. And then I see a great mass of cobweb. Again. So by now, im like ??? so I walked in. And wouldnt you know, there was a spinny caged flaming spider. So I read the page over again,and it didnt say anything about having 2. I have proof, I went to f3 mode and took pics of each, you can see that their withing steps of eachother. Ill show them if anyone wants. But.... Is anyone else finding this? Did I just make Minecraft history? (Probably not, but you never know.)Swifttail 01:11, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Cave Spider Dungeons only have one spawner. However, finding two spawners means two seperate dungeons :)

A week back, while on the Reddit Survival Server, I found a double cave spider spawner. The spawners were separated by only three blocks. MinecraftFan1 02:31, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I found something like that, it was on Creative when I had a chunk loading I saw a Abandoned mine. So I went down to explore the mine and I came across a spawner and then a few blocks away there were a whole nother load of cobwebs so I was like what the heck and found another spawner about seven blocks or something away.There was also diamond right next to it because it was close to bedrock.Yes, I think they were two different Mines cuase they were on different levels (only by one block but whatever)even though they were right next to each other.

Hey I found an Abandoned Mineshaft while exploring a ravine and I decided to explore and I found 5 spawners,two dungeon and 1 dirt room.Three of them were fairly close to each other but has anyone else found 5 or more. O.o Seed is = 350114125 Cave entrance - Around X = -87 Y= 64 Z= 232 Should be around Spawn if using 1.8

I commonly find spawners in pairs -- not in the same room, but their cobweb-and-spawner layouts are near each other. --Mental Mouse 01:49, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I foound one abandoned mine shaft with the single large dirt floored room, and six cave spider spawners. 18-Jul-2014

Name change
Can these features be renamed? They aren't just abandoned mine shafts, as the shaft is only the vertical bit that takes you to different levels. "Abandoned Mine" would be a correct name. Chris3145 00:16, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe Abandoned Mine Shaft is the official name for it, despite the accuracy of it. Check any of the reference links --HexZyle 06:21, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Strange sounds...
In the trivia section of this article, "Strange noises" are mentioned. Now, some people on the forums are claiming to have heard some strange mining/footstep sounds. Do we have any proof of these "Strange Noises" and, if not, why is it there? Ubernox 17:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * They are called Loops and Ambience, although some people think they could be Hoaxes --HexZyle 02:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It's caused by a Cave Spider Spawner nearby, the spiders would make a footstep/block breaking noise as they move/climb.

It used to bug the hell out of me till I worked it out. 2.217.162.214 03:21, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Yup, they are ambiences, I really hate ambiences, Cave10 makes me shiver. I downloaded a mod which, if loaded, will give you a .CFG file in the folder names "SoundModEnabler", what I did was open the .CFG file and changed "DisableCaveSounds" from 0 (or false) to 1 (or true). There, no more cave noises that spooks the hell out of me. 12Kenzy 14:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Totally, in fact, on disc 13, if you listen to the start of the sound, it sounded a bit like someone mining or a cave spider that just spawned. Minergamer1inonly (talk) 14:24, 10 November 2015 (UTC)Miner

squares of dirt?
ive seen in lp videos random squares of flat dirt in mineshafts... 1 in ethoslabs, which was made ito a farm, and once in kurtjmacs. what is the deal with these?
 * Absolutely no idea. Maybe some failed idea of a junction? Or perhaps its supposed to work as a mine or something :S --HexZyle 01:23, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Layers?
I don't think mineshafts can occur above layer 40, but I'm not sure. Maybe it can, because they are floating in surface ravines. HotdogPi 02:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I've had Abandoned Mine Shaft entrances generate inside of small hills.72.77.67.99 01:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that they can because I found one right at the beginning of a cave on the surface.You could be right though.Wow, you've found some in small hills.I didn't even think that that is possible I mean Shafts are usually long and big.Well I guess that depends on how "small" the hill is. :P


 * I just checked the code. The generator always puts the starting room's floor at layer 50, with a max height of that room of 11 spaces above it (range: 6-11, but the upper-most layers aren't included in the generation if no mineshaft corridor is making use of them), so a corridor (they try to generate on the sides of such rooms and pick their height randomly) can run at layers 68-71 at most - just a bit above average sea level. For orientation, "stair" structures are always generated going down, so if you want to find the central room, you have to follow them up whenever you see one.
 * Side note: It's possible (if unlikely) for a mine shaft to consist of just the central room. --87.139.115.177 11:10, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 50+11=61. Maximum 61, not 71. (I have never seen one above sea level.) Should we add to the article that the dirt rooms are always at layer 50? HotdogPi 01:30, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't put it at layer 50 every time. In fact, I saw gold in one! –Preceding unsigned comment was added by HotdogPi (talk • contribs)&#32;01:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC). Please sign your posts with
 * Technically, the code does always generate the room at layer 50. But then after generating the entire mine (but before actually placing it into the world), it shifts the whole thing vertically to try to place the entire abandoned mineshaft somewhere between Y=1 and Y=53 (although it can go higher if a particularly tall mine was generated). There's a bug in there, though: the room tries to make sure the exit from the room to the adjacent shafts are clear, but it doesn't shift the coordinates of the exits along with the rest of the mine leading to strange 2×3×3 air pockets above the room between (I think) Y=51 and Y=56. Anomie x (talk) 21:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Technically, the code does always generate the room at layer 50. But then after generating the entire mine (but before actually placing it into the world), it shifts the whole thing vertically to try to place the entire abandoned mineshaft somewhere between Y=1 and Y=53 (although it can go higher if a particularly tall mine was generated). There's a bug in there, though: the room tries to make sure the exit from the room to the adjacent shafts are clear, but it doesn't shift the coordinates of the exits along with the rest of the mine leading to strange 2×3×3 air pockets above the room between (I think) Y=51 and Y=56. Anomie x (talk) 21:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Generation bug
TVTropes reports that any time a new chunk is generated while you're in a mineshaft it'll make more mineshaft, potentially an endless labyrinth. Is there any veracity to this? 50.77.60.53 20:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * very unlikely because how seeds work they wouldn't generate more mineshaft continusly.Darkychao 21:27, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Piece Generation
"The generator continues to add pieces on to an exit until it reaches a "depth" of 8 (eight pieces from an exit), meaning a maximum of twenty-four (24) pieces." Can someone explain this? I mean explain why the maximum is 24?--108.76.103.35 18:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Good point, given that 8&times;4 is 32. Also:
 * how long can each corridor piece be?
 * The page says there are stairs. I have never seen stairs, not in my 1.2.4 game where they were all over, and not in the one I've found in 1.3.1.  I *have* found large sections of wooden-plank floor (sometimes partly-bridging a ravine), which are not mentioned.
 * There are, however, multiple levels -- are these spawned off the multi-floor pillars?
 * --Mental Mouse 01:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The generation code is painfully convoluted, but I partially understand it now. The 'depth' of 8 pieces from the central room is correct, though only corridor pieces seem to count toward that limit. The maximum of 24/32 pieces is wrong, as it ignores branches, each of which is handled separately (e.g., if there's a fork two pieces in, each branch can add another six pieces). I'm fairly certain I've seen central rooms with more than four exits, as well. A single corridor piece is at most four 'segments' (sections between wooden arches) long, but there can easily be several corridor pieces in a row. Stair pieces are relatively rare, and just tunnel through the ground on a diagonal - they don't use the actual stair blocks. -- Orthotope 05:03, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Below layer 10
Are mineshafts below layer 10 filled with lava? HotdogPi 23:25, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It turns out they are not filled with lava below layer 10. In fact, they replace bedrock! HotdogPi Come to my page! 23:49, 5 April 2012 (UTC) Yes, I changed my signature.

The "How to explore" section is an absolute joke.
The entire "How to explore" section is astoundingly redundant, full of conjecture, poorly written, does not conform to the structure of a wiki section, and has a good deal of information that is unnecessary or unrelated to abandoned mine shafts. The entire section should be IMMEDIATELY REMOVED from the 'Abandoned Mine Shaft' MineCraft wiki entry. Seriously, the fact this section was even created is almost as absurd as the fact that it wasn't IMMEDIATELY REMOVED at that point. My recommendation is that it be IMMEDIATELY REMOVED FROM THE PAGE ALTOGETHER, as it should have been the moment someone put it up there.

In an effort to be somewhat constructive, I cleaned up some of the rambling poorly written diatribe in this section, but only after unsuccessfully attempting to IMMEDIATELY REMOVE it from the page.

Whoever wrote the section originally clearly does not understand how to contribute to a wiki. 205.237.162.41 13:30, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

- Ofcourse, this guy appearantly is the only one who knows how to contribute to a Wiki. I would reccommend being more constructive by just giving your reason of changing it, instead of spitting fire to the one who wrote it.

Special world generator options
If I create a new world with the special option "Generate Structures: OFF", will that world contain Abandoned Mine Shafts? (The description under that option button says "Villages, dungeons etc", so I'm not sure whether Abandoned Mine Shafts are included).

--76.76.146.52 17:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC) (quirkster)
 * I am pretty sure they are not included. HotdogPi 01:30, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * If you set Generated Structures to OFF, Mining Shafts will not generate, as they are structures. EDFan12345 01:33, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Biome Correlation
There seems to be a general consensus that they are more common in deserts, but is there actually any evidence for this? I personally found them to be most common in the ocean biome, but I haven't done a lot of exploring them. Does anyone know whether or not their occurrence varies based on biome? Sedrick Stevenson 03:48, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I haven't found anything to support this. Mineshaft generation is determined directly from the world seed; using the same seed in Default and Large Biomes worlds produces mineshafts in the same locations. -- Orthotope 05:38, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Extra Ores In Mineshafts
Can someone who knows their way around the code look for any evidence of extra ores spawning around mineshafts? I seem to notice that ores are more likely to spawn around mine shafts, and I want to know if this is a strange fluke or not. 96.51.73.66 19:44, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I think it's less that more ores are spawning and more that the layout of mineshafts do a good job of exposing existing veins of ore and material. Cobalt32 20:09, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Mysterious 1x2 Stairs
Hey, I was wandering around a mineshaft when i came to a dead end, with a small 1x2 stair corridor leading down to some more of the mineshaft. It had the same layout as normal stairs but was only 1 block wide. Don't know how this happened, maybe a generation bug, or maybe He's trying to freak me out. Nonetheless, I hastily left before I either completely panicked or encountered... certain individuals. Someone get back to me about whatever the heck i saw down there.

Cosmicguy 19:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)Cosmicguy

Um, what do you mean by "certain individuals"? Or "He"? You're starting to freak me out. Anyways, it's probably a generation bug. Phoenixx 15:56, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The “He” with a capital H is most likely a reference to Herobrine, and as such, the story is most likely fake. —Fenhl 20:19, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Obtainable items section
This whole section seems redundant and unnecessary. Also, it appears that there is no consensus on which items should be included in this list, as can be seen by the repeated changes. I propose to remove it. Opinions? —Fenhl 19:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Screenshots
Hi, I just wanna tell that the article lacks screenshots for mineshafts at surface level in Mesa biomes in the Pocket Edition. Can someone upload a screenshot of it? --ToonLucas22 (talk) 13:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

New section for above-ground mineshafts
I propose a new section/subsection of the article to be devoted to Pocket Edition's above-ground mineshafts. These use a slightly different structure, are composed of different materials, and have been officially referred to under a different name. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by Illidicia (talk • contribs) at 19:58, 14 May 2015 (UTC). Please sign your posts with

Mesa Mineshafts
I know that this is a small question but, do cave spider spawners spawn in Mesa mineshafts? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.60.16.23 (talk) at 23:32, 06 June 2015 (UTC). Please sign your posts with


 * They most likely use the same generation code as the underground mineshafts, meaning I assume yes (though I don't own the Pocket edition, so someone else would have to test it). – KnightMiner  t/c 23:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Move proposal
The Beta 1.8 release notes mention "Added underground mine shafts". However, the 1.10 changelog includes "Find abandoned mineshafts filled with gold in mesa biomes". While 'abandoned mineshaft' may not have been the original official name, it seems to be what they're using now. -- Orthotopetalk 05:04, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * It should be moved. | AndrewAB (talkAndrewAB.png 22:05, 20 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Well it should at least be moved to not have the space then. –Majr ᐸ Talk Contribs 02:11, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Abandoned Mine generation
Do abandoned mines generate from a single center point, or can the shaft have multiple centers? This would be very useful information to have on the wiki page. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.114.197.174 (talk) at 18:43, 24 January 2019 (UTC). Please sign your posts with

What's the highest Y-level at which a cave spider spawner can appear?
Lapsem (talk) 22:18, 17 May 2020 (UTC)