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Ore Layout

All of the current ores.

Ores are rare stone blocks used to obtain resources.

Usage

Extracted Ores

Ores isolated down to bedrock

Ores are primarily collected for crafting purposes, such as for tools and armor. Redstone is obtained from redstone ore, which can be used to create redstone circuits. Ore can also be combined to create a block of the material's type.

PercentOfOreByHeight

This graph shows the actual amount of ore found in a relatively small but untapped world.

Obtaining resources from ores is as simple as mining them (this is not the case for iron and gold ores, which must be smelted). Coal, diamond, emerald, and nether quartz ores drop 1 unit corresponding raw materials. Redstone ore drops 4-5 redstone dust, and lapis lazuli ore drops 4-8 lapis lazuli. Note this can be increased greatly with fortune. All ore blocks except iron and gold require a Silk Touch pickaxe to drop themselves.

As a smelting ingredient

Ingredients Smelting recipe
Any raw ore + Any fuel


Further uses

All mineral blocks except quartz are crafted by putting 9 of the raw material items in a square. Quartz blocks are irreversibly crafted with 4 nether quartz and can be crafted in the inventory.

Ingredients Crafting recipe
Any processed ore

All raw materials except quartz can be crafted from their mineral blocks.

Ingredients Crafting recipe
Most mineral blocks

Availability

The following is the distribution of ores according to the altitude (layers are number of blocks above the lowest layer of bedrock). The highest layers that gold, redstone, diamond, and lapis lazuli can be found on are two layers lower.[1] The graph on the right shows the ore distribution. More graphs can be found on reddit[1].

Ore type Most found on... Commonly found up to... Rare on layers... None at or above... Lowest tier of pickaxe needed for drop Found in...
Coal[note 1] Layers 5-52 Layer 128 Layer 129-131 Layer 132 Wooden Overworld
Iron Layers 5-54 Layer 64 Layer 65-67 Layer 68 Stone Overworld
Lapis Lazuli Layers 14-16[note 2] Layer 23 Layer 31-33 Layer 34 Stone Overworld
Gold Layers 5-29 Layer 29 Layer 31-33 Layer 34 Iron Overworld
Gold - In Badlands Layers 32-63 Layer 76 Layer 77-79 Layer 80 Iron Overworld, in Badlands biomes only
Diamond Layers 5-12 Layer 12 Layer 13-15 Layer 16 Iron Overworld
Redstone Layers 5-12 Layer 12 Layer 13-15 Layer 16 Iron Overworld
Emerald[note 3] Layers 5-29 Layer 29 Layer 30-32 Layer 33 Iron Overworld, in Mountains biomes only
Nether Quartz[note 4] Layers 15-120 Layer 120 Layer 124-125 Layer 126 Wooden The Nether
  1. This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in ore veins and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.
  2. Unlike other ores, lapis lazuli's frequency peaks around layer 15, and slowly tapers off above and below.
  3. Instead of multi-block veins, emerald ore is placed in scattered blocks.
  4. Quartz spawns equally in all parts of the Nether (not counting lava and bedrock.)

Redstone has the same layer and line-size statistics as Diamond, but is generated 8 times per chunk as opposed to 1.

Table

Coal Iron Gold Redstone Lapis Lazuli Diamond Emerald Nether Quartz
Ore block Coal Ore Iron Ore Gold Ore Redstone Ore Lapis Lazuli Ore Diamond Ore Emerald Ore Nether Quartz Ore
Refined resource Coal Iron Ingot Gold Ingot Redstone Dust Lapis Lazuli Diamond Emerald Nether Quartz
Mineral block Block of Coal Block of Iron Block of Gold Block of Redstone Lapis Lazuli Block Block of Diamond Block of Emerald Block of Quartz

Video

Note: This video is outdated, as emerald ore, nether quartz ore, and redstone block were added in 1.3.1 and 1.5, respectively. Also, the video shows glistering melon being crafted with one gold nugget.

Ore/video

History

Gallery

References


classic
May 21, 2009Notch shows interest in adding iron ore.
0.0.14aIron Ore Coal Ore File:Gold Ore Revision 1.png Added gold ore, iron ore, and coal ore.
These ores could only be found exposed in amounts ranging from roughly 10 to 30 in a vein.
October 24, 2009Texture change for gold ore teased.
0.27 SURVIVAL TESTGold Ore Changed the texture of gold ore.
Mining an ore will now give the corresponding block of it.
indev
0.31Diamond Ore Added diamond ore.
infdev
March 20, 2010Random ore is now placed randomly around the terrain.
March 27, 2010Ores will now replace stone upon a world reload.
March 30, 2010The ore change of replacing stone upon a world reload has been reverted.
alpha
v1.0.1Redstone Ore Added redstone ore.
beta
1.2Lapis Lazuli Ore Added lapis lazuli ore.
1.8?The highest layer for some ores has been lowered by 2.
Java Edition
1.0.0Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4Coal, diamond, redstone, and lapis lazuli ore will now also drop as ore blocks with Silk Touch.
1.3.112w21aFile:Ruby Ore.png On 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] 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]
12w21bEmerald Ore Changed texture of emerald ore.
12w22aAll ores except gold and iron (which give experience when smelted) will now drop experience points when mined.
Emerald ore veins will now always consist of single blocks.
1.513w01aNether Quartz Ore Added nether quartz ore.
1.814w29aOre generation is now a lot faster.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.1.0Coal OreIron OreRedstone OreLapis Lazuli OreGold OreDiamond Ore Added coal, iron, redstone, gold, lapis and diamond ores.
0.3.0Coal ore will now drop coal.
0.3.2Diamond ore will now drop a diamond.
Iron and gold ores are now smeltable into metal ingots.
0.4.0Lapis lazuli ore will now drop the lapis lazuli dye.
0.8.0?Redstone ore will now finally drop redstone dust.
0.9.0?Emerald Ore Added emerald ore.
0.12.1?Nether Quartz Ore Added nether quartz ore.
Mining ores will now give experience.
Legacy Console Edition
Tu1Coal, Iron, Diamond And Gold Ore Added
Tu11 Added Lapis Lazuli Ore
tu26Added Redstone Ore And Emerald Ore
tu40Added Nether Quartz Ore
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0Added Ores
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