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Diamond Ore is an ore for a rare gem, diamond, which is one of the most valuable resources for tools and armor found in Minecraft.
Overview
Immediately after mining the block, a player acquires a diamond, rather than the ore itself. Diamonds can be used to make very strong tools and durable armor. However, diamonds are quite hard to find, and are usually located from 0 to 16 layers above the bedrock level. To mine diamond ore, a player will need an iron or diamond pickaxe. To obtain the diamond ore block, it must be mined with an iron pickaxe or higher with the Silk Touch enchantment on it.
Often, a player will encounter underground dungeons while digging, and can loot chests within to find diamonds and other ores.
Mining
Diamond ores appear at layers 7–13, and sometimes can be found at bedrock layer. There are many popular and efficient ways to find diamonds. One such way is to randomly dig around Layer 10, and depending on a player's luck, they will get 16–34 diamonds with 8–10 iron pickaxes being used and destroyed. It is also a good idea to enchant the pickaxe with Unbreaking or Efficiency before a player starts to dig.
Mining a diamond ore itself requires the silk touch enchantment. The ore can later be excavated with a pickaxe with a fortune I, II, or III enchantment for a chance to get more diamonds.
Trivia
- Diamond, like other ores, is easier to find in caves and empty lava pools, as this gives more surface area.
- Like other ores, diamond was about 50% more common in the quadrant south-west of the point (0,0) compared to the north-east quadrant. However, this was fixed in Beta 1.6.
- In some vein formations, ores connect diagonally. Therefore, it is recommended to mine around diamond ore. This also permits checking for lava.
- Diamond ore, along with other ores, appears in the background on the achievement page.
- Diamonds are the second-rarest item in the game, the first being emerald ore, as of 1.3.2, which comes in smaller veins than diamond, usually only 1 or 2 ore blocks.
- Diamond ore could not be found or placed in Classic as of version 0.30.
- Diamond ore is the most praised and used ore on Pocket Edition, PC, and the Xbox 360 edition since the ore provides stronger armor, tools and weapons.
- Like coal ore, Lapis Lazuli Ore, Redstone Ore, and Emerald Ore, diamond ore doesn't need to be smelted.
- Diamond ore is technically not an ore as it is a precious stone, rather than a malleable material/metal.
- Diamond ore can have as many as 10 ores congruent, whereas gold ore only goes up to 9. This, however, is a rarity, and is not always found.
- Diamond ore is most popular at layer 12 around lava or ravines.
- If a player is having trouble finding diamonds, make a strip mine at level 10, and it will cover layers, 9, 10, 11, and 12.
- Notch has many times considered changing the diamond ore to look the same as emerald ore, but change its color to cyan instead of green.
