Mineshaft



Abandoned mine shafts are naturally generated structures that generate in the Overworld. They were added in the adventure update, along with strongholds and NPC villages.

Structure
Abandoned mine shafts consist of:
 * A starting point - a large room with a flat dirt floor, an arc ceiling and up to four exits (one in each direction).
 * Corridors - 3×3 block corridors featuring supports made from fences and wooden planks (sometimes complementary with torches), broken rails, crossings (wooden pillars), stairs, chests (containing resources) and cave spider spawners surrounded by cobwebs. The generator continues to add pieces onto an exit until it reaches a "depth" of 8 (eight pieces from an exit), meaning a maximum of twenty-four (24) pieces.

Abandoned mine shafts are generated before chunk features such as ores. Corridors carve out blocks rather than placing a border around, often resulting in floating features, such as inside a ravine. Jeb stated at MineCon that he would fix this. As of Snapshot 12w05a, floating corridors will spawn on top of bridges made of wooden planks.

Chest contents
Each chest contains 3-6 stacks of items, chosen from the following list. Chance listed is per stack, not for the chest as a whole.

Exploration
Mine shafts can be easily found in ravines or large caves, where it is likely that a mine shaft will intersect them. In ocean biomes it is possible to find the upper part of the shaft complex exposed to water at some of the sections.

Abandoned mine shafts may be large and be akin to mazes, making it difficult to keep bearings. The venomous Cave Spiders are common and make exploration dangerous unless prepared. However, due to automatically placed torches, the presence of other mobs is much lower, making areas aside from the Spider spawners safer than caves. Gravel sometimes collapses into shafts, making them appear to be dead ends. Dig a few blocks past gravel walls to check if the shaft continues or not.

Using the large amount of resources found in abandoned mine shafts, the player may cut down cobwebs, take out wood from the supports, and create a safe room with a bed within the shafts to work out of. This makes exploration easier, although becoming lost means losing resources within the room and possibly death from the Cave Spiders or other hazards within the elaborate structure. One should put caution before anything else when exploring these locations. If the need of food arises, melon seeds and wheat are found in loot chests and water can be found in caves around the mine. It is also likely to find bread in the chests as well.

The minecart tracks can be repaired, and the mine shaft can be utilized for mining after it is cleaned up and rid of mob spawners.

How to explore
Abandoned mine shafts can be extremely difficult to explore, especially since some can be cut in half through ravines. The easiest ways to get the most out of an abandoned mine shaft without a ravine going through it is the following. Skip to the next part if you have found an abandoned mine shaft with a ravine cutting through it.

The first thing one should do when finding an abandoned mineshaft is to walk through the mine shaft, but make sure everywhere you go, the hall is well lit with torches. This helps locate all minerals present like iron ore, or coal, which may be embedded in the wall. Having multiple redundant sets of tools, weapons, and stacks of dirt/cobblestone (or any block not affected by gravity) is also beneficial. Valuable blocks and chests can often be found in difficult to access areas due to the mine's random generated nature. It is commonly required to build bridges or staircases to access all the areas within an abandoned mine shaft.

Because of the labyrinth-like characteristics of abandoned mine shafts, it is recommended to leave indication of where the exit routes are. (Such as a cobblestone or two adjacent torches.) Due to the repeating layouts and multiple floors, becoming lost and walking in circles is easier than in a cave. Another way to keep track of explored areas is to harvest the fence posts, so it is obvious which areas were cleared. You can then use the fence posts to block off unexplored regions so you don't end up with mobs coming from behind you. Still another way to mark your path is to pick up and reset the minecart tracks the shaft provides-- with two or three (and sometimes as few as one) tile of track, you can indicate direction. Rails have an advantage over torches as breadcrumbs, in that they serve only one purpose, whereas torches provide necessary light, and may be left in places that could confuse your return path.

It is also somewhat common for mine shafts to intersect ravines, caves, and other underground structures, and therefore contact with lava is a potential hazard.

An easy way to explore these caverns is to block explored areas of the mineshaft, this way it is easier to not get lost. Also, you could use a few signs to remind yourself where you're going.

History

 * In the Beta 1.8pre1 and 2, support beams in mines were only made of planks. Fences were added later in the 1.8 version.
 * Originally, due to a world generation glitch, parts of an Abandoned Mine shaft could be floating in the air. This was most noticeable when an Abandoned Mine Shaft intersected an underground ravine, where the wooden supports for shafts could be found floating. Chests, spawners and mine cart tracks are also included in this. This bug was fixed in snapshot 12w05b, by adding wooden bridges in any floating part of the mineshaft.
 * As of 1.2, abandoned mine shafts have a layer of wooden planks to serve as flooring if the supports would be hanging in the air.

Bugs

 * If an abandoned mine shaft intersects a dungeon, it may destroy the dungeon's chests, causing the contents to fall to the ground.
 * When the mineshafts are being generated, there is likely to be a spot where two shafts are generated on top of each other creating a very annoying obstacle if you are attempting to traverse the top shaft.
 * Sometimes some of the randomly placed torches will not give off light, but still give off flame particles.
 * There may be flowers, grass blocks and tall grass growing in the dirt room even if it is nowhere near the surface.

Trivia

 * Entrances to mine shafts can also appear underwater, causing the mine shaft to flood.
 * Sometimes torches may not be attached to blocks but still give off light.