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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 thus 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]

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

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

History

classic
May 21, 2009Notch shows interest in adding iron ore.
0.0.14aIron Ore JE1 BE1 Coal Ore JE1 BE1 Gold Ore JE1 Added gold ore, iron ore, and coal ore.
These ores could be found exposed only in amounts ranging from roughly 10 to 30 in a vein.
October 24, 2009A texture change for gold ore has now been teased by Notch.
0.27 SURVIVAL TESTGold Ore JE2 BE1 The texture of gold ore has now been changed.
Mining an ore now gives the corresponding block of it.
indev
0.312010-01-29Diamond Ore JE1 BE1 Added diamond ore.
infdev
March 20, 2010Random ore is now placed randomly around the terrain.
March 27, 2010Ores now replace stone upon a world reload.
March 30, 2010The ore change of replacing stone upon a world reload has now been reverted.
alpha
v1.0.1Redstone Ore JE1 BE1 Added redstone ore.
beta
1.2Lapis Lazuli Ore JE1 BE1 Added lapis lazuli ore.
1.8?The highest layer for some ores has now been lowered by 2.
Java Edition
1.0.0Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4Coal, diamond, redstone, and lapis lazuli ore now also drop as ore blocks with Silk Touch.
May 21, 2012The 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]
1.3.112w21aFile:Ruby Ore.png 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]
12w21bFile:Emerald Ore JE1 BE1.png The texture of emerald ore has now been changed.
12w22aAll ores except gold and iron (which give experience when smelted) now drop experience points when mined.
Emerald ore veins now always consists of single blocks.
1.513w01aNether Quartz Ore JE1 BE1 Added nether quartz ore.
1.814w29aOre generation is now a lot faster.
1.1418w43aCoal Ore JE2 BE2 File:Iron Ore JE3 BE2.png Redstone Ore JE2 BE2 Lapis Lazuli Ore JE2 BE2 Gold Ore JE3 BE2 Diamond Ore JE2 BE2 File:Emerald Ore JE2 BE2.png Nether Quartz Ore JE2 The textures of all ores have now been changed.
18w50aNether Quartz Ore JE3 BE2 The texture of nether quartz ore has now been changed.
19w08aDiamond Ore JE3 BE3 The texture of diamond ore has now been changed.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.1.0Coal Ore JE1 BE1 Iron Ore JE1 BE1 Redstone Ore JE1 BE1 Lapis Lazuli Ore JE1 BE1 Gold Ore JE2 BE1 Diamond Ore JE1 BE1 Added coal, iron, redstone, gold, lapis lazuli and diamond ores.
0.3.0Coal ore now drops coal.
0.3.2Diamond ore now drops a diamond.
Iron and gold ores are now smeltable into metal ingots.
0.4.0Lapis lazuli ore now drops lapis lazuli .
0.8.0build 2Redstone ore now finally drops redstone dust.
0.9.0build 1File:Emerald Ore JE1 BE1.png Added emerald ore.
0.12.1build 1Nether Quartz Ore JE1 BE1 Added nether quartz ore.
Mining ores now gives experience.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0beta 1.10.0.3Coal Ore JE2 BE2 File:Iron Ore JE3 BE2.png Redstone Ore JE2 BE2 Lapis Lazuli Ore JE2 BE2 Gold Ore JE3 BE2 Diamond Ore JE2 BE2 File:Emerald Ore JE2 BE2.png Nether Quartz Ore JE3 BE2 The textures of all ores have now been changed.
1.11.0beta 1.11.0.5Diamond Ore JE3 BE3 The texture of diamond ore has now been changed.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1CU1 1.00 Patch 1Coal Ore JE1 BE1 Iron Ore JE1 BE1 Redstone Ore JE1 BE1 Lapis Lazuli Ore JE1 BE1 Gold Ore JE2 BE1 Diamond Ore JE1 BE1 Added coal, iron, redstone, gold, lapis lazuli and diamond ores.
TU7All ores except gold and iron (which give experience when smelted) now drops experience points when mined.
TU14 1.04 File:Emerald Ore JE1 BE1.png Nether Quartz Ore JE1 BE1 Added emerald ore & nether quartz ore.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90Coal Ore JE2 BE2 File:Iron Ore JE3 BE2.png Redstone Ore JE2 BE2 Lapis Lazuli Ore JE2 BE2 Gold Ore JE3 BE2 Diamond Ore JE2 BE2 File:Emerald Ore JE2 BE2.png Nether Quartz Ore JE3 BE2 The textures of all ores have now been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0Coal Ore JE1 BE1 Iron Ore JE1 BE1 Redstone Ore JE1 BE1 Lapis Lazuli Ore JE1 BE1 Gold Ore JE2 BE1 Diamond Ore JE1 BE1 File:Emerald Ore JE1 BE1.png Nether Quartz Ore JE1 BE1 Added coal, iron, redstone, gold, lapis lazuli, diamond, emerald and nether quartz ores.

Gallery

References

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