Ore

All of the current ores.

Ores are rare stone blocks used to obtain resources.

Usage[edit]

Ores isolated down to bedrock

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.

This graph shows the actual amount of ore found in a relatively small but untapped world.

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 thus 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	9999999

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]

	Coal^{[note 1]}	Iron	Gold	Redstone	Lapis Lazuli	Diamond	Emerald^{[note 2]}	Nether Quartz^{[note 3]}
Ore block
Refined resource
Mineral block
Most found in layers...	5-52	5-54	5-29	5-12	23	5-12	5-29	15-120
Commonly up to layers...	128	64	29, 76^{[note 4]}	12	31-33	12	29	120
Rare on layers...	129-131	65-67	31-33, 77-79^{[note 4]}	13-15	34	13-15	30-32	124-125
None at or above...	132	68	34, 80^{[note 4]}	16	34	16	29	126
Minimal pickaxe for drop	Wooden	Stone	Iron	Iron	Stone	Iron	Iron	Wooden
Found in...	Overworld	Overworld	Overworld, especially Badlands	Overworld	Overworld	Overworld	Overworld, in Mountain biomes only	The Nether

↑ This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in ore veins and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.
↑ 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.)
↑ ^a ^b ^c In Badlands.

Redstone has the same layer and line-size statistics as Diamond, but is generated 8 times per chunk as opposed to 1.

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.
0.0.14a				These ores could be found exposed only 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.
0.27 SURVIVAL TEST				Mining an ore now gives the corresponding block of it.
Java Edition Indev
0.31		2010-01-29		Added diamond ore.
Java Edition Infdev
March 20, 2010				Random ore is now placed randomly around the terrain.
March 27, 2010				Ores 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 now also drops 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) now drop experience points when mined.
		12w22a		Emerald ore veins now always consists of single blocks.
1.5		13w01a		Added nether quartz ore.
1.8		14w29a		Ore generation is now a lot faster.
1.14		18w43a		Changed the textures of all ores.
		18w50a		Changed the texture of nether quartz ore.
		19w08a		Changed the texture of diamond ore.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.1.0				Added coal, iron, redstone, gold, lapis lazuli and diamond ores.
0.3.0				Coal ore now drops coal.
0.3.2				Diamond ore now drops a diamond.
0.3.2				Iron and gold ores are now smeltable into metal ingots.
0.4.0				Lapis lazuli ore now drops lapis lazuli .
0.8.0		build 2		Redstone ore now finally drops redstone dust.
0.9.0		build 1		Added emerald ore.
0.12.1		build 1		Added nether quartz ore.
0.12.1		build 1		Mining ores now gives experience.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3		Changed the textures of all ores.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.5		Changed the texture of diamond ore.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.00	Patch 1	Added coal, iron, redstone, gold, lapis lazuli and diamond ores.
TU7		1.00		All ores except gold and iron (which give experience when smelted) now drops experience points when mined.
TU14		1.04		Added emerald ore & nether quartz ore.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90				Changed the textures of all ores.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0				Added coal, iron, redstone, gold, lapis lazuli, diamond, emerald and nether quartz ores.