Ore
Ores are rare stone blocks used to obtain resources.
Contents
Usage[edit]
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.
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[edit]
| Ingredients | Smelting recipe |
|---|---|
| Any raw ore + Any fuel |
Further uses[edit]
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 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[edit]
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] The graph on the right shows the ore distribution. More graphs can be found on reddit[1].
| Ore type | Most found on... | Commonly found up to... | Rare on layers... | None at or above... | Lowest tier of pickaxe needed for drop | Found in... |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coal[note 1] | Layers 5-52 | Layer 128 | Layer 129-131 | Layer 132 | Wooden | Overworld |
| Iron | Layers 5-54 | Layer 64 | Layer 65-67 | Layer 68 | Stone | Overworld |
| Lapis Lazuli | Layers 14-16[note 2] | Layer 23 | Layer 31-33 | Layer 34 | Stone | Overworld |
| Gold | Layers 5-29 | Layer 29 | Layer 31-33 | Layer 34 | Iron | Overworld |
| Gold - In Badlands | Layers 32-63 | Layer 76 | Layer 77-79 | Layer 80 | Iron | Overworld, in Badlands biomes only |
| Diamond | Layers 5-12 | Layer 12 | Layer 13-15 | Layer 16 | Iron | Overworld |
| Redstone | Layers 5-12 | Layer 12 | Layer 13-15 | Layer 16 | Iron | Overworld |
| Emerald[note 3] | Layers 5-29 | Layer 29 | Layer 30-32 | Layer 33 | Iron | Overworld, in Mountains biomes only |
| Nether Quartz[note 4] | Layers 15-120 | Layer 120 | Layer 124-125 | Layer 126 | Wooden | The Nether |
- ↑ This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in ore veins and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.
- ↑ Unlike other ores, lapis lazuli's frequency peaks around layer 15, and slowly tapers off above and below.
- ↑ Instead of multi-block veins, emerald ore is placed in scattered blocks.
- ↑ Quartz spawns equally in all parts of the Nether (not counting lava and bedrock.)
Redstone has the same layer and line-size statistics as Diamond, but is generated 8 times per chunk as opposed to 1.
Table[edit]
| Coal | Iron | Gold | Redstone | Lapis Lazuli | Diamond | Emerald | Nether Quartz | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ore block |  |
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| Refined resource |  |
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| Mineral block |  |
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Video[edit]
History[edit]
| Java Edition Classic | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 21, 2009 | Notch shows interest in adding iron ore. | ||||
| 0.0.14a |  Added gold ore, iron ore, and coal ore.
| ||||
| These ores could only be found exposed in amounts ranging from roughly 10 to 30 in a vein. | |||||
| October 24, 2009 | Texture change for gold ore teased. | ||||
| 0.27 SURVIVAL TEST | Changed the texture of gold ore.
| ||||
| Mining an ore will now give the corresponding block of it. | |||||
| Java Edition Indev | |||||
| 0.31 | Added diamond ore. | ||||
| Java Edition Infdev | |||||
| March 20, 2010 | Random ore is now placed randomly around the terrain. | ||||
| March 27, 2010 | Ores will now replace stone upon a world reload. | ||||
| March 30, 2010 | The ore change of replacing stone upon a world reload has been reverted. | ||||
| Java Edition Alpha | |||||
| v1.0.1 | Added redstone ore. | ||||
| Java Edition Beta | |||||
| 1.2 | Added lapis lazuli ore. | ||||
| 1.8 | ? | The highest layer for some ores has been lowered by 2. | |||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.0.0 | Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4 | Coal, diamond, redstone, and lapis lazuli ore will now also drop as ore blocks with Silk Touch. | |||
| 1.3.1 | 12w21a |  On 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] 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 | Changed texture of emerald ore. | ||||
| 12w22a | All ores except gold and iron (which give experience when smelted) will now drop experience points when mined. | ||||
| Emerald ore veins will now always consist of single blocks. | |||||
| 1.5 | 13w01a | Added nether quartz ore. | |||
| 1.8 | 14w29a | Ore generation is now a lot faster. | |||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| 0.1.0 | Added coal, iron, redstone, gold, lapis and diamond ores. | ||||
| 0.3.0 | Coal ore will now drop coal. | ||||
| 0.3.2 | Diamond ore will now drop a diamond. | ||||
| Iron and gold ores are now smeltable into metal ingots. | |||||
| 0.4.0 | Lapis lazuli ore will now drop the lapis lazuli dye. | ||||
| 0.8.0 | ? | Redstone ore will now finally drop redstone dust. | |||
| 0.9.0 | ? | Added emerald ore. | |||
| 0.12.1 | ? | Added nether quartz ore.
| |||
| Mining ores will now give experience. | |||||
Gallery[edit]
A picture of every ore except emerald and nether quartz.
All of the current overworld ores including emerald ore and diamond ore.
All overworld ores in a natural cave.
A vein of coal, and a vein of iron, both in a ravine. Ores like this can be hard to get to, due to the difficulty of climbing the ravine's wall.
Five different ore veins.
References[edit]
- ↑ 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
