Ore

All of the current ores.

Ores are rare stone blocks used to obtain resources.

Usage

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

Ingredients	Smelting recipe
Any raw ore

Further uses

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	9 9 9 9 9 9 9

Availability

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

Ores isolated down to bedrock

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. The graph on the right shows the ore distribution.

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	Layers 5-52	Layer 128	Layer 129-131	Layer 132	Wooden	The Overworld
Iron	Layers 5-54	Layer 64	Layer 65-67	Layer 68	Stone	The Overworld
Lapis Lazuli	Layers 14-16	Layer 23	Layer 31-33	Layer 34	Stone	The Overworld
Gold	Layers 5-29	Layer 29	Layer 31-33	Layer 34	Iron	The Overworld
Gold	Layers 32-63	Layer 76	Layer 77-79	Layer 80	Iron	The Overworld, in mesa biomes only
Diamond	Layers 5-12	Layer 12	Layer 13-15	Layer 16	Iron	The Overworld
Redstone	Layers 5-12	Layer 12	Layer 13-15	Layer 16	Iron	The Overworld
Emerald	Layers 5-29	Layer 29	Layer 30-32	Layer 33	Iron	The Overworld, only in the Extreme Hills biome
Nether Quartz	Layers 15-120	Layer 120	Layer 124-125	Layer 126	Wooden	The Nether

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

Table

	Coal	Iron	Redstone	Gold	Lapis Lazuli	Diamond	Emerald	Nether Quartz
Ore block
Refined resource
Mineral block

Video

Note: This video is outdated, as emerald ore, nether quartz ore, and redstone block were added in 1.3.1 and 1.5, respectively. Also, the video shows glistering melon being crafted with one gold nugget.

History

Classic
May 21, 2009					Notch shows interest in adding iron ore.
0.0.14a					Added gold ore, iron ore, and coal ore.
					They could only be found exposed in amounts ranging from roughly 10 to 30 in a vein.
October 24, 2009					Texture change for gold teased.
0.27 SURVIVAL TEST					Changed the texture of gold ore.
					Mining an ore gives the corresponding block of it.
Indev
0.31					Added diamond ore.
Infdev
March 20, 2010					Random ore is placed randomly around the terrain.
March 27, 2010					Ores now replace stone upon a world reload.
March 30, 2010					Reverted above change.
Alpha
v1.0.1					Added redstone ore.
Beta
1.2					Added lapis lazuli ore.
1.8			?		The highest layer for some ores was lowered by 2.
Official release
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4		Coal, diamond, redstone, and lapis lazuli can 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. At this time, what would become emerald ore was ruby ore. 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.
			12w21b		Changed texture to emerald.
			12w22a		All ores except gold and iron (which give experience when smelted) drop experience points when mined.
					Emerald ore veins 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 now drops coal.
0.3.2					Diamond ore now drops a diamond.
					Iron and gold ores are now smeltable into metal ingots.
0.4.0					Lapis lazuli ore now drops the dye.
0.8.0			?		Redstone ore now finally drops redstone dust.
0.9.0			?		Added emerald ore.
0.12.1			?		Added nether quartz ore.
					Mined ores now give experience.

Gallery

• 

  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.

• 

  Exposed ore veins.

• 

  Five different ore veins.

References

Blocks

View at: Template:Blocks/content [edit]