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All of the ores as of 1.16.5.
Ores isolated down to bedrock
This graph shows the actual amount of ores found in a relatively small but untapped world as of Java Edition 1.12.2
This graph shows the actual amount of ancient debris found in a relatively small but untapped world as of Java Edition 20w06a
All of the current ores as of 21w08a.
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 is obtained from redstone ore or deepslate redstone ore[upcoming: JE 1.17], which can be used to create redstone circuits. Ore can also be combined to create a block of the material's type.
There are two ways to obtain a resource from an ore block, depending on the type of ore:
- Mining: The indicated yield can be increased by mining the ore with a pickaxe enchanted with Fortune. Ores that drop their resource when mined require a Silk Touch pickaxe to drop themselves.
- Coal, diamond, deepslate diamond[upcoming: JE 1.17], emerald, and nether quartz ores drop 1 unit of corresponding raw material.
- Redstone and deepslate redstone[upcoming: JE 1.17] ores drop 4–5 redstone dust.
- Lapis lazuli and deepslate Lapis Lazuli[upcoming: JE 1.17] ores drop 4–9 lapis lazuli.
- Smelting: Iron ore, deepslate iron ore[upcoming: JE 1.17] copper ore[upcoming: JE 1.17], gold ore, and ancient debris all drop themselves when mined. They must be smelted to obtain the corresponding resource (iron, copper, gold, and netherite scraps, respectively).
Smelting ingredient
| Ingredients | Smelting recipe |
|---|---|
| Any raw ore + Any fuel |
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.
Further uses
All mineral blocks except quartz and copper[upcoming: JE 1.17] 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. Copper blocks[upcoming: JE 1.17] are also crafted from 4 copper ingots, which is reversible only if the copper block has not started oxidizing.
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Any processed ore |
All raw materials except quartz can be crafted from their mineral blocks.
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Most mineral blocks |
Iron and Gold ingots can be converted into nuggets and vice-versa.
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Metal Ingots |
| 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. Netherite tools and armor also require you to first have diamond tools and armor.
| 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.
Diamond items +
Netherite Ingot
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
[until JE 1.17]:
Before the Caves & Cliffs update on Java Edition 1.17 and Bedrock Edition 1.17.0, all overworld ores had the following distribution:
| Coal[a] | Lapis Lazuli | Iron | Gold | Redstone[b] | Diamond | Emerald[c] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ore block | ![]() |
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| Refined resource | ![]() |
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| Manufactured |
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| Mineral block | ![]() |
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| Minimal pickaxe for drop | Wooden | Stone | Iron | |||||
| Found in biome... | Any | Badlands | Any | Mountains | ||||
| Abundance | Very Common | Rare | Common | Uncommon | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Very Rare |
| Most found in layers... | 5-52 | 13-17[d] | 5-54 | 5-29 | 5-12 | 5-29 | ||
| Commonly up to layers... | 124 | 23 | 61 | 29 | 76 | 12 | 29 | |
| Rare on layers... | 125-127 | 31-33 | 62-63 | 31-33 | 77-79 | 13-15 | 30-32 | |
| None at or above... | 128 | 34 | 64 | 34 | 80 | 16 | 33 | |
| Can Replace | Stone | |||||||
Notes
- ↑ This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in ore veins and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.
- ↑ Redstone has the same layer and line-size statistics as Diamond, but is generated eight times per chunk as opposed to once.
- ↑ Instead of multi-block veins, emerald ore is placed in scattered blocks.
- ↑ Unlike most other ores, lapis lazuli's frequency peaks around layer 15, and slowly tapers off above and below.
[upcoming: JE 1.17]:
| Coal[a] | Copper | Lapis Lazuli | Iron | Gold | Redstone[b] | Diamond | Emerald[c] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ore block | ![]() |
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| Deepslate variant | N/A | N/A | ![]() |
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N/A | |
| Refined resource | ![]() |
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| Manufactured |
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| Mineral block | ![]() |
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| |
| Minimal pickaxe for drop | Wooden | Stone | Iron | ||||||
| Found in biome... | Any | Badlands | Any | Mountains | |||||
| Abundance | Very Common | Common | Rare | Very Common | Uncommon | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Very Rare |
| Total range... | [more information needed] | ||||||||
| Most found in layers... | [more information needed] | ||||||||
| Commonly up to layers... | [more information needed] | ||||||||
| Rare on layers... | [more information needed] | ||||||||
| None at or above... | [more information needed] | ||||||||
| Can replace | Stone |
Stone | |||||||
The Nether
| Nether Quartz[d] | Nether Gold | Ancient Debris | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ore block |
|
|
| |
| Refined resource |
|
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|
| Manufactured |
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| ||
| Mineral block |
|
|
| |
| Minimal pickaxe for drop | Wooden | Diamond | ||
| Abundance | Very Common | Common | Very Rare | |
| Found in biome... | Any Nether | |||
| Most found in layers... | 10 to 114 | 15 | 13 to 17[e] | |
| Commonly up to layers... | 120 | 95 | 23 | |
| Rare on layers... | 123 to 125 | 96 to 116 | 22 to 119 | |
| None at or above... | 128 | 117 | 120 | |
| Can Replace | Netherrack | |||
- ↑ This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in ore veins and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.
- ↑ Redstone has the same layer and line-size statistics as Diamond, but is generated eight times per chunk as opposed to once.
- ↑ Instead of multi-block veins, emerald ore is placed in scattered blocks.
- ↑ Nether quartz spawns equally in all parts of the Nether.
- ↑ 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 ore. | ||||
| 0.0.14a | |||||
| These ores could be found exposed only in amounts ranging from roughly 10 to 30 in a vein. | |||||
| October 24, 2009 | A texture change for gold ore has been teased by Notch. | ||||
| 0.27 SURVIVAL TEST | |||||
| Mining an ore now gives the corresponding block of it. | |||||
| Java Edition Indev | |||||
| 0.31 | 20100129 | ||||
| 20100201-2 | Ores can no longer be mined without a pickaxe. | ||||
| Java Edition Infdev | |||||
| Minecraft 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 | |||||
| Java Edition Beta | |||||
| 1.2 | |||||
| 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 | File: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] | |||
| 12w21b | File:Emerald Ore JE1 BE1.png 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 | ||||
| Texture Update | ? | ||||
| 1.14 | 18w43a | ||||
| 18w50a | |||||
| 19w08a | |||||
| 1.14.1 | Pre-Release 1 | ||||
| 1.16 | 20w06a | ||||
| 20w11a | |||||
| 20w12a | Nether gold ore now drops gold nuggets instead of itself. | ||||
| 20w13a | |||||
| October 3, 2020 | |||||
| Upcoming Java Edition | |||||
| 1.17 | 20w45a | ||||
| 21w07a | |||||
| Changed ore distribution. See Ore/Pre-1.17 distribution for the old distribution. | |||||
| February 17, 2021 | |||||
| February 18, 2021 | |||||
| February 18, 2021 | |||||
| February 22, 2021 | |||||
| 21w08a | |||||
| Changed ore distribution. | |||||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| v0.1.0 | |||||
| v0.3.0 | Coal ore now drops coal. | ||||
| v0.3.2 | Diamond ore now drops a diamond. | ||||
| 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 | File:Emerald Ore JE1 BE1.png Added emerald ore. | |||
| v0.12.1 | build 1 | ||||
| Mining ores now gives experience. | |||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 | ||||
| 1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.5 | ||||
| 1.16.0 | beta 1.16.0.51 | ||||
| beta 1.16.0.57 | |||||
| Upcoming Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.16.210 | beta 1.16.210.57 | ||||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU1 | CU1 | 1.00 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | |
| TU7 | All ores except iron and gold (which give experience when smelted) now drops experience points when mined. | ||||
| TU14 | 1.04 | File:Emerald Ore JE1 BE1.png | |||
| 1.90 | |||||
| New Nintendo 3DS Edition | |||||
| 0.1.0 | |||||
Gallery
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





















































