Gravel

Gravel

Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tool
Blast resistance	0.6
Hardness	0.6
Luminant	No
Transparent	No
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No

	“	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

Gravel is a block that is affected by gravity.

Obtaining

Natural generation

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 as disks on beaches, near small pools of water, river, in gravelly mountains biomes covering most of the surface and underwater covering the bottom of normal, cold, frozen ocean biomes, and deep variants.

Gravel also generate as part of cold underwater ruins.

Gravel can generate in the Overworld in the form of mineral veins. Gravel attempts to generate 8 times per chunk in veins of size 1-33, at all levels and in all biomes.

Veins of gravel attempt to replace netherrack 2 times per chunk in veins of size 1-33, from levels 5 to 41, in all Nether biomes except basalt deltas.

Breaking

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 the level I, 25% at level II, and 100% at level III.

Block	Gravel
Hardness	0.6
Tool
Breaking time
Default	0.9
Wooden	0.45
Stone	0.25
Iron	0.15
Diamond	0.15
Netherite	0.1
Golden	0.1

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

Bartering

Piglins may barter 8-16 gravel when given a gold ingot.

Usage

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.

Bamboo can be placed and grown on gravel.

Crafting ingredient

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

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

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Block broken	Blocks	Breaking the block	block.gravel.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	1.0	0.8	16
	None	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.gravel.fall	None	0.5	0.75	16
	Block breaking	Blocks	Mining the block	block.gravel.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit	0.25	0.5	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

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

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

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Translation key
Gravel	gravel	block.minecraft.gravel

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Translation key
Gravel	gravel	13	tile.gravel.name

Falling block entity

Falling Block

Size	Height: 0.98 Blocks Width: 0.98 Blocks

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 does 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

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					Added gravel.
					Gravel behaves similarly to sand, which was also added during this update.
					Rather than falling by turning into a falling block entity, 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.
					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 been changed.
0.0.23a					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.
Java Edition Indev
20100219					Gravel now has a 10% chance of dropping flint.
Java Edition Infdev
20100227					Gravel has been removed during map tests.
20100413					Gravel has 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
v1.2.0_01					Replaced soul sand with gravel in the Nether.
Java Edition Beta
1.2					FallingSand entities now behave better in multiplayer.
1.8		Pre-release			Terrain generation has 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.
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 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.
		18w09a			Gravel now generates in underwater ruins.
1.14		18w43a			The texture of gravel has been changed.
1.16		20w07a			Gravel now has a 5⁄109 (~4.59%) chance of being given by the new piglins when bartering, in a stack size of 4–12, making it renewable.
		20w09a			Gravel now has a 20⁄226 (~8.82%) chance of being given by piglins when bartering, in a stack size of 1–5.
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.[verify]
0.6.0					Gravel is now affected by gravity.
0.8.0		build 2			The texture of gravel has 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 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 been changed.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.4			Trading has 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.
1.16.0		beta 1.16.0.57			Gravel now has a 10⁄106 (9.43%) chance of being given by piglins when bartering, in a stack size of 8–16, making it renewable.
					gravel now generate below lava sea layer in the Nether.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added gravel.
TU9					The texture of gravel has been changed.
		1.90			The texture of gravel has been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added gravel.

Issues

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

Trivia

• 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

• 

  A naturally generated gravel patch as seen in a cave.

• 

  A naturally generated gravel floor as seen in an ocean.

• 

  A gravel patch as seen in the Nether.

• 

  Gravel shown to be not affected by gravity if there is a non-solid block (except fire) underneath it.

Java Edition

• 

  An early gravel beach from Java Edition Alpha.

• 

  A gravel beach before Java Edition Beta 1.8.

• 

  A shorter gravel beach before Java Edition Beta 1.8.

Bedrock Edition

• 

  Gravel in early versions of Pocket Edition shown to be not affected by gravity.

References

Blocks

View at: Template:Blocks/content [edit]

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]