Gravel

Transparent	No
Luminance	0
Blast resistance	3
Tool
Renewable	No
Stackable	Yes (64)
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No
Drops	Itself
Data value	dec: 13 hex: D bin: 1101
Namespaced ID	gravel

	“	Gravel has been a part of Minecraft since May 2009, when it was added to the game alongside other basics like sand, coal, and trees. Unlike those blocks, however, it's always been largely decorative - spawning in pockets underground that really get in the way when you're digging a tunnel, or in small quantities on beaches and near pools of water.	„
		— Duncan Geere^[1]

Gravel is a block that is affected by gravity.

Occurence[edit]

Natural generation[edit]

In the Nether, gravel generates naturally in large veins between Y=63 and Y=65 in one-block-deep layers. It often generates without blocks below it, in which case it falls when updated.

Gravel is also found on beaches, near small pools of water, river, in gravelly mountains biomes covering most surface and underwater covering bottom of normal, cold, frozen ocean biomes, and deep variants.

Gravel also generate as part of cold underwater ruins.

Mineral veins[edit]

Gravel can generate in the Overworld in the form of mineral veins. Gravel attempts to generate 8 times per chunk in veins of size 33, from altitudes 0 to 256, in all biomes.

Obtaining[edit]

Gravel can be broken using any tool, but a shovel is the quickest. When broken, it has a 10% chance of dropping flint instead of the gravel itself. The flint received can be controlled with enchantments. Silk Touch removes the chance of dropping flint. Fortune increases the chance to 14% at level I, 25% at level II, and 100% at level III.

If gravel falls onto a non-full block, it drops as an item and will not drop flint.

Block	Gravel
Hardness	0.6
Tool
Breaking time^{[note 1]}
Hand	0.9
Wooden	0.45
Stone	0.25
Iron	0.15
Diamond	0.15
Golden	0.1

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

Usage[edit]

A gravel block falls until it lands on the next available block below it. It exhibits a smooth falling animation.

When gravel falls on a player or mob, it can engulf the head, resulting in suffocation inside gravel until destroying the block, moving out of it, or dying. If falling gravel lands in the space occupied by a non-solid block, (such as torches, slabs, rails, or redstone dust) or soul sand, it breaks and turn into a gravel item. If it falls onto a cobweb, falls slowly until it passes completely through, or until it touches the ground, at which point it drops and becomes a gravel item.

Gravel can be placed on a non-solid block without falling.

Loot[edit]

Block	Incorrect tool	Correct tool	Fortune 1	Fortune 2	Fortune 3	Silk Touch
Gravel	1 (90%) or 1 (10%)		1 (86%) or 1 (14%)	1 (75%) or 1 (25%)	1 (100%)	1 (100%)
Gravel	No experience

Crafting ingredient[edit]

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Description
Coarse Dirt	Dirt + Gravel	4
Concrete Powder	Matching Dye + Sand + Gravel	8888888888888888
White Concrete Powder or Blue Concrete Powder or Brown Concrete Powder or Black Concrete Powder	Bone Meal or Lapis Lazuli or Cocoa Beans or Ink Sac + Sand + Gravel	8888	‌^{[Bedrock and Education editions only]}

Trading[edit]

Novice-level fletcher villagers have a 50%‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} or ²⁄₃‌^{[Java Edition only]} chance to buy 10 gravel and one emerald for 10 flint as part of their trade.

Sounds[edit]

Java Edition:

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

Bedrock Edition:

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

Data values[edit]

Falling block entity[edit]

Falling Block

Internal ID	JE: 21 BE: 66
Network ID	JE: 70
Namespaced ID	falling_block

Main article: Falling Block

Dynamic block entity data
- Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
- TileEntityData: Optional. The tags of the block entity for this block.
- BlockState: The falling block represented by this entity.
  - Name: The namespaced ID of the block.
  - Properties: Optional. The block states of the block.
    - Name: The block state name and its value.
- Time: The number of ticks the entity has existed. If set to 0, the moment it ticks to 1, it vanishes if the block at its location has a different ID than the entity's TileID. If the block at its location has the same ID as its TileID when Time ticks from 0 to 1, the block is deleted, and the entity continues to fall, having overwritten it. When Time goes above 600, or above 100 while the block is below Y=0, the entity is deleted.
- DropItem: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the block should drop as an item when it breaks. Any block that does not have an item form with the same ID as the block will not drop even if this is set.
- HurtEntities: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the block should hurt entities it falls on.
- FallHurtMax: The maximum hit points of damage to inflict on entities that intersect this falling_block . For vanilla falling_block, always 40 × 20.
- FallHurtAmount: Multiplied by the FallDistance to calculate the amount of damage to inflict. By default this value is always 2.

History[edit]

Java Edition Classic
May 21, 2009				Notch shows interest in adding gravel.
May 23, 2009				Notch says he accomplished adding sand. This claim may also extend to gravel.
0.0.14a				^[verify] Added gravel.
				Gravel behaves similarly to sand, which was also added during this update.
				Rather than falling by turning into a falling block entity^[verify], gravel instantly appears at the lowest point it can go when placed above an air block, without any sort of falling animation. This behavior that lasted until the Seecret Friday 1 update, in Infdev.
				A glitch occurring at this time allows players to raise the height of a fluid block by placing gravel over it. The gravel stays suspended in mid-air until it is broken. When broken, a fluid block corresponding to the type below the gravel appears where the block was. The suspended fluid block remains immobile until a block was placed next to it, causing a flood.
				Map editors can now be used to create floating gravel, although the server crashes if the gravel is affected from its state.
0.0.15a (Multiplayer Test 1)				The texture of gravel has now been changed.
Java Edition Indev
20100219				Gravel now has a 10% chance of dropping flint.
Java Edition Infdev
20100227				Gravel has been removed during map tests.^[2]
20100413				Gravel has now been re-added.
20100617-2				Gravel now generates underground, along with dirt, for more varied caves.
20100618				FallingSand entities now falls more realistically.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.5				FallingSand entities now float above snow covered tiles when placed above them, an unintended behavior.^[verify]
v1.2.0		preview		Gravel can now be found in the newly-added the Nether.
Java Edition Beta
1.2				FallingSand entities now behave better in multiplayer.
1.8		Pre-release		Terrain generation has now been changed, removing gravel beaches.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5		The texture of gravel has been changed again.
1.3.1		12w21a		The texture of gravel has been changed once again.
		12w22a		Gravel is now able to be used in the trading system: buying flint costs 1 emerald and 10 gravel.
		12w22a		Inventory sprites for blocks have been flipped from left to right, changing to .
1.4.2		12w38a		Gravel now has new sounds when being walked on.
1.8		14w25a		Gravel can now be used to craft coarse dirt.
1.10		16w20a		Falling dust particles for unsupported gravel have now been added.
1.12		17w06a		Gravel is now used to craft concrete powder.
1.13		17w47a		Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 13.
1.13		18w09a		Gravel now generates in underwater ruins.
1.14		18w43a		The texture of gravel has now been changed.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.1.0				Added gravel. It used the pre-1.3.1 texture prior to 0.8.0, but whether it used this texture upon introduction as well is unknown.
0.6.0				Gravel is now affected by gravity.
0.8.0		build 2		The texture of gravel has now been changed.
0.9.0		build 1		Gravel no longer falls when generated.
				Gravel now appears in villages.
				Falling gravel now drops a resource when landing on a non-solid block.
0.10.0		build 1		Falling dust particles for unsupported gravel have now been added.
0.11.0		build 1		Gravel no longer generates as a village path.
0.12.1		build 1		Gravel now generates in the Nether.
Pocket Edition
1.0.4		alpha 1.0.4.0		10 gravel can now be used to trade with fletcher villagers for 6-10 flint.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0		Gravel is now used to craft concrete powder.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.0		beta 1.2.0.2		Gravel can now be used to craft coarse dirt.
1.4.0		beta 1.2.20.1		Gravel now generates in underwater ruins.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3		The texture of gravel has now been changed.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.4		Trading has now been changed, fletcher villagers now have a 50% chance to buy 10 gravel and one emerald for 10 flint as part of their first tier trade.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	Added gravel.
TU9	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	The texture of gravel has now been changed.
		1.90		The texture of gravel has now been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0				Added gravel.

Issues[edit]

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

Trivia[edit]

Explosions launch falling gravel.
If a player stands on a stack of sand or gravel, and the stack falls onto a non-solid block, the player falls fast enough to take damage or even die.
Gravel often falls into caves, making a mock dead end. If a player encounters a gravel dead-end while mining, removing the gravel may reveal additional passageways.

Gallery[edit]

Gravel in early versions of Pocket Edition was not affected by gravity.
Gravel in the Nether.
Gravel still does not fall down if there is a non-solid block (except fire) underneath it.
When a patch of gravel is dug out, it can reveal ores such as coal and iron.
An ocean with a gravel floor to the left.
Gravel beach from Java Edition Alpha.
A gravel beach from before Java Edition Beta 1.8.
A shorter gravel beach.