Ore

All of the current ores as of the Caves & Cliffs update

This graph shows the actual amount of ores found in a relatively small but untapped world as of Java Edition 1.17.1

This graph shows the actual amount of ancient debris found in a relatively small but untapped world as of Java Edition 20w06a

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 and armor. Redstone dust is obtained from redstone ore or deepslate redstone ore, which can be used to create 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 variants drop 1 unit of their raw form.
Copper and deepslate copper ores drop 2-3 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	0.10.10.70.70.70.70.20.2110.70.711110.212
Raw Iron or Raw Copper or Raw Gold + Any fuel	0.70.71

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.

Further uses[]

Refined ore resources can be crafted into blocks for bulk storage, for crafting recipes or for decoration. Coal blocks and most mineral blocks are crafted by putting 9 of the refined material items in a square. Nether quartz is the only Mineral block that only needs 4 items to be crafted.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Any processed ore
Any raw ore

All of the above block recipes are reversible, excluding quartz and oxidized copper.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Most mineral blocks	999999999
Any raw ore blocks	999

Iron and Gold ingots can be converted into nuggets and vice-versa.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Metal Ingots	99

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Metal Nuggets

Lapis Lazuli can be crafted into a dye, or even used as one.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Lapis Lazuli

Netherite scraps, obtained by smelting ancient debris, are used alongside gold ingots to create netherite ingots. This is the only mineral used alongside another mineral to create an alloy.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Gold Ingot, Netherite Scrap

Netherite ingots can be used on a smithing table to upgrade diamond items to netherite items. Data such as durability, enchantments, and custom names are preserved.

Ingredients	Smithing recipe
Diamond items + Netherite Ingot	Upgrade Gear

Availability[]

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. The highest layers that gold, redstone, diamond, and lapis lazuli ore can be found on are two layers lower.^[1]

Overworld[]

As of Java Edition 1.17 and Bedrock Edition 1.17.0:

	Coal^[a]	Copper	Lapis Lazuli	Iron	Gold		Redstone	Diamond	Emerald^[b]
Ore block
Deepslate variant^[c]
Raw resource
Refined resource
Manufactured	-	-					-	-	-
Mineral block
Raw mineral block
Minimal pickaxe for drop	Wooden	Stone			Iron
Found in biome...	Any					Badlands	Any		Mountains
Abundance	Very Common	Common	Rare	Common	Uncommon	Common	Uncommon	Rare	Very Rare
Most found in layers...	5-52	5-192	13-17^[d]	5-54	5-29		5-12		5-29
Commonly up to layers...	128	96	23	61	29	76	5-12		29
Rare on layers...	129-131	^{[more information needed]}	31-33	62-63	31-33	77-79	13-15		30-32
None at or above...	132	193	34	64	34	80	16		33
Can replace ^[e]	Stone Andesite Diorite Granite Tuff Deepslate								Stone Tuff Deepslate

The second part of Caves & Cliffs will change the distribution of ores for the expanded world height.‌^{[upcoming: 1.18]}

	Coal^[f]	Copper		Lapis Lazuli	Iron	Gold		Redstone	Diamond	Emerald^[g]
Ore Block
Deepslate variant ^[h]
Raw resource
Refined resource
Manufactured	-	-						-	-	-
Mineral block
Raw Mineral Block
Minimal pickaxe for drop	Wooden	Stone				Iron
Ore veins distinguishable block ^[i]	-	Granite		-	Tuff	-
Found in biome...	Any		Dripstone Caves^[j]	Any			Badlands	Any		Mountains
Abundance	Very common	Common	Very common	Uncommon	Very common	Rare	Common	Uncommon	Rare	Uncommon
Total range...	0 to 320	0 to 96		-64 to 64	-64 to 320	-64 to 30	-64 to 79	-64 to 16		32 to 320
Most found in layers...	95 and 136	48		-1	15 and 255	-17	32 to 79	-59		255
None at layers...	-64 to -1	-64 to -1 and 97 to 320		65 to 320	65 to 127	31 to 320	80 to 320	15 to 320	16 to 320	-64 to 31
Deepslate variant generates naturally?	Partial^[k]			Yes						No
Can replace ^[l]^[m]	Stone Andesite Diorite Granite Tuff Deepslate									Stone Tuff Deepslate

The Nether[]

	Nether Quartz	Nether Gold	Ancient Debris
Ore block
Raw resource			-
Refined resource
Manufactured	-
Mineral block
Minimal pickaxe for drop	Wooden		Diamond
Found in biome...	Any Nether
Abundance	Very Common	Common	Very Rare
Most found in layers...	10-114	15	13-17^[n]
Commonly up to layers...	120	95	23
Rare on layers...	123-125	96-116	22-119
None at or above...	128	117	120
Can Replace	Netherrack		Netherrack Basalt Blackstone

↑ 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 deepslate blobs between layers 0 and 16.
↑ Unlike most other ores, lapis lazuli's frequency peaks around layer 15, and slowly tapers off above and below.
↑ Deepslate variants replace only Deepslate and Tuff.
↑ 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 deepslate under layer 0. Deepslate Emerald Ore doesn't generate naturally.
↑ The block which allows to distinguish its large ore veins.
↑ It features very large blobs, most times as double as big than a normal blob.
↑ They can only generate under very specific circumstances. Because they can only generate above Y=0, an ore has to generate at Y=1 and then stretch below Y=0. There also has to be deepslate to replace which is uncommon above Y=-3.
↑ Deepslate variants replace only Deepslate and Tuff.
↑ While Coal, Copper and Emerald technically can replace Deepslate and Tuff, as they do not generate on layers under 0, they can't replace them naturally.
↑ 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					Added coal, iron, and gold ores.
0.0.14a					These ores could be found exposed only in amounts ranging from roughly 10 to 30 in a blob.
October 24, 2009					A texture change for gold ore has been teased by Notch.
0.26 SURVIVAL TEST					The texture of gold ore has been changed.
0.26 SURVIVAL TEST					Mining an ore now gives the corresponding block of it.
Java Edition Indev
0.31		20100128			Added diamond ore.
0.31		20100201-2			Ores can no longer be mined without a pickaxe.
Java Edition Infdev
20100320					Random ore is now placed randomly around the terrain.
20100327					Ores now replace stone upon a world reload.
20100330					The ore 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.
1.2					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					The week before the release of 12w21a, Jeb released a screenshot of himself testing the trading system.^[2] At this time, what would become emerald ore was ruby ore.^[3]
1.3.1		12w21a			For the release of 12w21a, the block was changed to an emerald ore. The texture for emerald ore remained unchanged, as Jeb forgot to commit the new texture in the snapshot.^[4]
		12w21b			The texture of emerald ore has been changed.
		12w22a			All ores except iron and gold (which give experience when smelted) now drop experience points when mined.
1.5		13w01a			Added nether quartz ore.
Texture Update		?			New textures for all ores have been proposed.
1.14		18w43a			The textures of all ores have been changed.
		18w50a			The texture of nether quartz ore has been changed.
		19w08a			The texture of diamond ore has been changed.
1.14.1		Pre-Release 1			The texture of iron ore has been changed.
1.16		20w06a			Added ancient debris.
		20w11a			Added nether gold ore.
		March 11, 2020			A new texture for nether gold ore is shown.
		20w12a			Nether gold ore now drops gold nuggets instead of itself.
		20w13a			The texture of nether gold ore has been changed.
October 3, 2020					Copper ore is revealed at Minecraft Live 2020.
1.17		20w45a			Added copper ore.
		21w07a			The textures of coal, iron, gold, diamond and redstone ore have been changed.
		21w07a			Changed ore distribution. See Ore/Pre-1.17 distribution for the old distribution.
		February 17, 2021			Henrik Kniberg shows deepslate (then grimstone) variants of Overworld ore with textures made by JAPPA.
		February 18, 2021			JAPPA shows new textures of iron, gold, lapis lazuli, and emerald ore and updated grimstone variants of Overworld ore.
		February 18, 2021			JAPPA shows a new texture for the grimstone variant of diamond ore.
		February 22, 2021			JAPPA shows updated iron, gold, copper, redstone ore and updated grimstone variant of Overworld ore.
		21w08a			Added deepslate ores.
					The textures of Coal, copper, iron, gold, redstone, lapis lazuli, and emerald ore have been changed.
					The new ore distribution has been tweaked.
		March 2, 2021			JAPPA shows updated iron ore and diamond ore textures.
		March 4, 2021			JAPPA Shows updated deepslate variants of iron, gold and diamond ore textures.
		21w10a			Deepslate variants of Coal Ore, Copper Ore, and Emerald Ore have been added, but they are not obtainable in Survival mode as they are intended for map and datapack creators use.
					The textures of Coal Ore, Iron Ore, Gold Ore, Diamond Ore, and the other Deepslate ores have been changed.
					Fossils that generate below Y=0 now generate with deepslate diamond ore instead of coal ore.
					Tweaked again the ore distribution.
		21w13a			Iron ore and diamond ore distribution has been slightly tweaked.
		21w13a			Copper ore now generates uniformly between levels 0 and 63 instead of generating with a normal curve from 0 to 96.
		21w14a			If Iron Ore, Gold Ore and Copper Ore are broke without silk-touch, they will drop Raw Metal instead.
		April 13, 2021			JAPPA shows a new gold ore texture.
		21w15a			The textures for gold, deepslate copper, lapis lazuli and deepslate lapis lazuli ore have been changed.
		21w15a			All of the changes to Ore distribution made in the last few snapshots have been reverted and moved to the prototype data pack.
		21w16a			Deepslate emerald ore now generates naturally.
		21w16a			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.
Upcoming Java Edition
1.18		Experimental Snapshot 1			All changes to ore distribution from the prototype data pack have now been implemented into the base game.
		Experimental Snapshot 1			Deepslate emerald ore no longer naturally generates.
		experimental snapshot 4			Increased the size of copper ore blobs in dripstone caves.
		experimental snapshot 4			Increased the amount of iron ore in mountains.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.1.0					Added coal, iron, gold, diamond, redstone, lapis lazuli ores.
v0.3.0					Coal ore now drops coal.
v0.3.2					Diamond ore now drops a diamond.
v0.3.2					Iron and gold ores are now smeltable into ingots.
v0.4.0					Lapis lazuli ore now drops lapis lazuli .
v0.8.0		build 2			Redstone ore now drops redstone dust.
v0.9.0		build 1			Added emerald ore.
v0.12.1		build 1			Added nether quartz ore.
v0.12.1		build 1			Mining ores now gives experience.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The textures of all ores have been changed.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.5			The texture of diamond ore has been changed.
1.16.0		beta 1.16.0.51			Added ancient debris.
1.16.0		beta 1.16.0.57			Added nether gold ore.
Caves & Cliffs (experimental)		beta 1.16.210.57			Added copper ore.
		beta 1.16.220.50			Updated textures of all Overworld ores.
		beta 1.16.220.52			Copper ore can no longer be randomly rotated.
1.17.0		beta 1.16.230.52			Added deepslate ores.
		beta 1.16.230.52			Ore is generated as normal, when the ore is generated where Deepslate has been generated, deepslate ore is generated instead.
		beta 1.16.230.54			Updated coal, iron, gold, diamond and lapis lazuli ore textures.
		beta 1.17.0.50			Changed deepslate coal, copper and lapis lazuli ore textures.
		beta 1.17.0.50			If Iron Ore, Gold Ore and Copper Ore are broke without silk-touch, they will drop Raw Metal instead.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added coal, iron, gold, diamond, redstone, lapis lazuli ores.
TU7		1.00			All ores except iron and gold (which give experience when smelted) now drops experience points when mined.
TU14		1.04			Added emerald and nether quartz ores.
		1.90			The textures of all ores have been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added coal, iron, gold, diamond, redstone, lapis lazuli, emerald and nether quartz ores.

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 cords.
Multiple ores found in one cave.
This graph shows the actual amount of ores found in a relatively small but untapped world as of Java Edition 1.12.2

Caves and Cliffs development[]

21w07a texture comparison.
The now and soon texture comparison of the ores and their deepslate variants (Before 21w08a).
An image showing another texture for deepslate diamond ore which improves on blending the ore texture with the base deepslate.
An image showing new iron and diamond texture.
An image showing another texture for deepslate Diamond Ore which improves on blending the ore texture with the base deepslate.
21w08a texture comparison.
21w10a texture comparison.
Ore distribution in 21w07a.
Ore distribution in 21w08a/21w08b.
Ore distribution in 21w10a.
Ore distribution in 21w18a.

Trivia[]

Ancient debris has two ways to generate, similar to gold ore.
Since it is exclusive to only one Overworld biome, emerald ore is actually rarer than ancient debris per chunk.

References[]

↑ http://i.imgur.com/djSvZ.png
↑ https://twitter.com/jeb_/status/204619936616808451
↑ snapshot 12w21a/b lang/en_US.lang: tile.oreRuby.name=Ruby Ore
↑ https://twitter.com/jeb_/status/205641953742819328

[2] This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in blobs and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.

[3] Instead of multi-block blobs, emerald ore is placed in scattered blocks.

[4] Deepslate variants only generate in deepslate blobs between layers 0 and 16.

[5] Unlike most other ores, lapis lazuli's frequency peaks around layer 15, and slowly tapers off above and below.

[6] Deepslate variants replace only Deepslate and Tuff.

[7] This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in blobs and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.

[8] Instead of multi-block blobs, emerald ore is placed in scattered blocks.

[9] Deepslate variants only generate in deepslate under layer 0. Deepslate Emerald Ore doesn't generate naturally.

[10] The block which allows to distinguish its large ore veins.

[11] It features very large blobs, most times as double as big than a normal blob.

[12] They can only generate under very specific circumstances. Because they can only generate above Y=0, an ore has to generate at Y=1 and then stretch below Y=0. There also has to be deepslate to replace which is uncommon above Y=-3.

[13] Deepslate variants replace only Deepslate and Tuff.

[14] While Coal, Copper and Emerald technically can replace Deepslate and Tuff, as they do not generate on layers under 0, they can't replace them naturally.

[15] Unlike most other ores, ancient debris' frequency peaks at layer 15, and quickly tapers off above and below.

[1] ttp://i.imgur.com/djSvZ.png

[16] ttps://twitter.com/jeb_/status/204619936616808451

[en_US_12w21-17] snapshot 12w21a/b lang/en_US.lang: tile.oreRuby.name=Ruby Ore

[18] ttps://twitter.com/jeb_/status/205641953742819328

[1]

[a]

[b]

[c]

[d]

[e]

[f]

[g]

[h]

[i]

[j]

[k]

[l]

[m]

[n]

[2]

[3]

[4]

Ore

Contents