Emerald Ore

Transparent	No
Luminant	No
Blast resistance	3
Tool
Renewable	No
Stackable	Yes (64)
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No

This article is about the ore. For the item, see Emerald. For the mineral block, see Block of Emerald.

Emerald ore is the rarest mineral block in the game. It drops emerald when mined.

Occurrence[edit]

Natural generation[edit]

Mineral veins[edit]

Emerald ore can generate in the Overworld in the form of mineral veins. Emerald ore attempts to generate 11 times per chunk in veins of size 1, from altitudes 0 to 32, within one of the following biomes, or within a chunk that is at least partially occupied by one of these biomes:

Obtaining[edit]

Loot[edit]

From block loot[edit]

The emerald ore block itself (rather than its emerald drops) can be obtained by mining it with an iron or diamond pickaxe with the Silk Touch enchantment.

Namespaced ID	Source	Incorrect tool	Correct tool	Silk Touch
`blocks/emerald_ore`	Emerald Ore	Nothing (100%)	See #Block loot	1 (100%)

Usage[edit]

Breaking[edit]

The emerald ore block itself (rather than its emerald drops) can be obtained by mining it with an iron, diamond or netherite pickaxe with the Silk Touch enchantment.

Block	Emerald Ore
Hardness	3
Tool
Breaking time^{[note 1]}
Default	15
Wooden	7.5
Stone	3.75
Iron	0.75
Diamond	0.6
Netherite	0.5
Golden	1.25

↑ Times are for unenchanted tools in seconds. For more information, see Haste § Instant mining.

Block loot[edit]

Namespaced ID	Source	Incorrect tool	Correct tool	Fortune I	Fortune II	Fortune III	Silk Touch
`blocks/emerald_ore`	Emerald Ore	Nothing (100%)	1 (100%)	[1 (67%) or 2 (33%)]	[1 (50%) or 2 (25%) or 3 (25%)]	[1 (40%) or 2 (20%) or 3 (20%) or 4 (20%)]	1 (100%)
Hardcoded	Emerald Ore		3–7	3–7	3–7	3–7

Smelting ingredient[edit]

Name	Ingredients	Smelting recipe
Emerald	Emerald Ore + Any fuel	1

Sounds[edit]

Java Edition:

Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Subtitle key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
Block broken	Blocks	Breaking the block	`block.stone.break`	`subtitles.block.generic.break`	1.0	0.8	16
None^[1]	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	`block.stone.fall`	`None`	0.5	0.75	16
Block breaking	Blocks	Mining the block	`block.stone.hit`	`subtitles.block.generic.hit`	0.25	0.5	16
Block placed	Blocks	Placing the block	`block.stone.place`	`subtitles.block.generic.place`	1.0	0.8	16
Footsteps	Blocks	Walking on the block	`block.stone.step`	`subtitles.block.generic.footsteps`	0.15	1.0	16

Bedrock Edition:^{[needs in-game testing]}

Sound	Description	Namespaced ID	Volume	Pitch
	Breaking the block	`dig.stone`	?	0.8
	Falling on the block with fall damage	`fall.stone`	?	?
	Mining the block	`hit.stone`	?	0.5
?	Jumping from the block	`jump.stone`	?	?
?	Falling on the block without fall damage	`land.stone`	?	?
	Walking on the block	`step.stone`	?	?
	Placing the block	`use.stone`	?	0.8

Data values[edit]

ID[edit]

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Translation key
Emerald Ore	`emerald_ore`	`block.minecraft.emerald_ore`

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Translation key
Emerald Ore	`emerald_ore`	`129`	`tile.emerald_ore.name`

Video[edit]

Note: The extreme hills biome has since been renamed to mountains

History[edit]

Java Edition
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		Added emerald ore.
				The announced ore has been changed to an emerald ore. The texture for emerald ore has remained unchanged, as Jeb forgot to commit the new texture in the snapshot.^[4] As this item was not announced before the snapshot was released, most translations call emerald "diamond".
				Emerald ore generates in veins of up to 10 blocks.
		12w21b		The texture of emerald ore has been corrected. The previous ruby texture remains as "ruby.png". Translations of emerald as diamond have also corrected.
		12w21b		An analysis of a 500×500 extreme hills biome with [[1]] gives the following ore distributions: Overall ore distribution in the bottom most 32 layers. A detailed zoom to the rare ores. The graphs show that the distribution of all ores except for lapis lazuli is even in a certain range and falls off sharply at the borders. While the total amount of emerald is with 3386, even higher than the amount of diamonds (2997), the ore is spread out over double the height range, meaning that at a certain level the chance for finding an ore was just about half of the chance of finding a diamond ore, effectively making it twice as rare when tunnel mining.
		12w22a		Emerald ore is no longer generated naturally.^[5] This is due to the large number of complaints by players about emerald ore's rarity, despite Jeb's wishes for it to be a "nice find." If this change had occurred, it would have still been available in the creative mode menu.^[6] However, Jeb eventually decided against it and added emerald ore back into natural generation after more community response.^[7] Jeb later decided to keep emeralds spawning as he thought it would be a "nice surprise"; emerald ore now generates only in veins of 1. Because of this, it is much more practical to obtain emeralds through trading.
		12w22a		Inventory sprites for blocks have now flipped from left to right, changing to .
1.13		17w47a		Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 129.
1.14		18w43a		The texture of emerald ore texture has been changed.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.9.0		build 1		Added emerald ore.
0.9.0		build 1		Emerald ore can be mined with a stone pickaxe instead of an iron one.
0.12.1		build 1		Mining emerald ore now drops experience orbs.
				Emerald ore can now be collected with Silk Touch, dropping the block itself.
				Emerald ore now drops extra emeralds with the Fortune enchantment.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.0		beta 1.2.0.2		Mining emerald ore now requires an iron pickaxe.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3		The texture of emerald ore texture has been changed.
Legacy Console Edition
TU14	CU1	1.04	Patch 1	Added emerald ore.
		1.90		The texture of emerald ore texture has been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0				Added emerald ore.

Issues[edit]

Issues relating to "Emerald Ore" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia[edit]

Even though emerald ore is rarer than diamond ore, emerald ore is generally found more often in mountains biomes than diamond ore, as the emerald ore blocks are generated in a more scattered fashion.

Gallery[edit]

The first image of the trading system released by Jeb. The emerald ore can be seen in the top right-hand corner with the original texture.
An enhanced version of Jeb's screenshot showing the original ore texture more clearly.
The old "ruby" texture of emerald ore.
The new texture of emerald ore.
Emerald ore found at layer 18 in an mountains biome.
Naturally occurring emerald ore.
Emerald blocks, emerald ores, and emeralds.
A comparison of the occurrence of emerald ore to the occurrence of diamond ore.
Two emerald ores that generated together, each one in a different chunk.
An emerald ore block found naturally in a cave.
An emerald ore block found outside of an mountains biome - this case in a desert biome.