Ore
Ores are uncommon rock-type blocks used to obtain specific 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, ancient debris, 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 4–9 lapis lazuli. Note this can be increased greatly with Fortune. All ore blocks except iron, copper,[upcoming: JE 1.17] gold, and ancient debris require a Silk Touch pickaxe to drop themselves.
As a smelting ingredient[edit]
| Ingredients | Smelting recipe |
|---|---|
| Any raw ore + Any fuel |
Ores can be smelted faster using a blast furnace.
Note: Smelting ores that still drop their resources when directly mined is not as efficient, since smelting gives less experience and only 1 piece of the resource, especially the ones that drop multiple pieces when mined.
Further uses[edit]
All mineral blocks except quartz and copper[upcoming: JE 1.17] 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. Copper blocks[upcoming: JE 1.17] are also crafted from 4 copper ingots, but you can craft them back into 4 copper ingots if the block didn't start to oxidize.
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Any processed ore |
All raw materials except quartz can be crafted from their mineral blocks.
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Most mineral blocks |
Iron and Gold ingots can be converted into nuggets and vice-versa.
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Metal Ingots |
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Metal Nuggets |
Lapis Lazuli can be crafted into a dye, or even used as one in Bedrock Edition.
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Lapis Lazuli |
Netherite scraps, obtained by smelting ancient debris, is used alongside gold ingots to create netherite ingots. This is the only mineral used alongside another mineral to create an alloy. Netherite tools and armor also require you to first have diamond tools and armor.
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Gold Ingot, Netherite Scrap |
Netherite ingots can be used on a smithing table to upgrade diamond items to netherite items. Data such as durability, enchantments, and custom names are preserved.
| Ingredients | Smithing recipe |
|---|---|
| Diamond items + Netherite Ingot |
Availability[edit]
The following is the distribution of ores according to the altitude (layers are number of blocks above the lowest layer of bedrock) in the Overworld and the Nether. The highest layers that gold, redstone, diamond, and lapis lazuli ore can be found on are two layers lower.[1]
Overworld[edit]
| Coal[a] | Iron | Copper[upcoming: JE 1.17] | Lapis Lazuli | Gold | Redstone[b] | Diamond | Emerald[c] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ore block |  |
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| Refined resource |  |
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| Manufactured | 
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| Mineral block |  |
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| Minimal pickaxe for drop | Wooden | Stone | Iron | ||||||
| Found in biome... | Any | Badlands | Any | Mountains | |||||
| Abundance | Very Common | Common | Common | Rare | Uncommon | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Very Rare |
| Most found in layers... | 5-52 | 5-54 | ??-?? | 13-17[d] | 5-29 | 5-12 | 5-29 | ||
| Commonly up to layers... | 128 | 64 | ?? | 23 | 29 | 76 | 12 | 29 | |
| Rare on layers... | 129-131 | 65-67 | ??-?? | 31-33 | 31-33 | 77-79 | 13-19 | 30-32 | |
| None at or above... | 132 | 68 | 64 | 34 | 34 | 80 | 20 | 33 | |
| Can Replace | Stone | ||||||||
The Nether[edit]
| Nether Quartz[e] | Nether Gold | Ancient Debris | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ore block | 
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| Refined resource | 
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| Manufactured |
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| Mineral block | 
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| Minimal pickaxe for drop | Wooden | Diamond | ||
| Abundance | Very Common | Common | Rare | |
| Found in biome... | Any Nether | |||
| Most found in layers... | 10-114 | 15 | 13-17[f] | |
| Commonly up to layers... | 120 | [more information needed] | 23 | |
| Rare on layers... | 123-125 | [more information needed] | 22-119 | |
| None at or above... | 128 | 117 | 120 | |
| Can Replace | Netherrack | |||
- ↑ This refers to coal ore blocks spawned in ore veins and not as parts of fossils or mansion forges.
- ↑ Redstone has the same layer and line-size statistics as Diamond, but is generated eight times per chunk as opposed to once.
- ↑ Instead of multi-block veins, emerald ore is placed in scattered blocks.
- ↑ Unlike most other ores, lapis lazuli's frequency peaks around layer 15, and slowly tapers off above and below.
- ↑ Nether quartz spawns equally in all parts of the Nether.
- ↑ Unlike most other ores, ancient debris' frequency peaks at layer 15, and quickly tapers off above and below.
History[edit]
| Java Edition Classic | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 21, 2009 | Notch shows interest in adding ore. | ||||
| 0.0.14a |    Added coal, iron, and gold ores.
| ||||
| These ores could be found exposed only in amounts ranging from roughly 10 to 30 in a vein. | |||||
| October 24, 2009 | A texture change for gold ore has been teased by Notch. | ||||
| 0.27 SURVIVAL TEST |  The texture of gold ore has been changed.
| ||||
| Mining an ore now gives the corresponding block of it. | |||||
| Java Edition Indev | |||||
| 0.31 | 20100129 |  Added diamond ore. | |||
| 20100201-2 | Ores can no longer be mined without a pickaxe. | ||||
| Java Edition Infdev | |||||
| 20100320 | Random ore is now placed randomly around the terrain. | ||||
| 20100327 | Ores now replace stone upon a world reload. | ||||
| 20100330 | 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. | ||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.0.0 | Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4 | Coal, lapis lazuli, redstone, and diamond ore now also drop as ore blocks with Silk Touch. | |||
| 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] | ||||
| 1.3.1 | 12w21a |  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 |  The texture of emerald ore has been changed. | ||||
| 12w22a | All ores except iron and gold (which give experience when smelted) now drop experience points when mined. | ||||
| 1.5 | 13w01a |  Added nether quartz ore. | |||
| 1.14 | 18w43a |   The textures of all ores have been changed. | |||
| 18w50a | The texture of nether quartz ore has been changed. | ||||
| 19w08a | The texture of diamond ore has been changed. | ||||
| 1.14.1 | Pre-Release 1 | The texture of iron ore has been changed. | |||
| 1.16 | 20w06a | Added ancient debris. | |||
| 20w11a |  Added nether gold ore. | ||||
| 20w12a | Nether gold ore now drops gold nuggets instead of itself. | ||||
| 20w13a | The texture of nether gold ore has been changed. | ||||
| October 3, 2020 | Copper ore is revealed at Minecraft Live 2020. | ||||
| Upcoming Java Edition | |||||
| 1.17 | 20w45a | Added copper ore. | |||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| 0.1.0 | Added coal, iron, lapis lazuli, gold, redstone 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 ingots. | |||||
| 0.4.0 | Lapis lazuli ore now drops lapis lazuli . | ||||
| 0.8.0 | build 2 | Redstone ore now drops redstone dust. | |||
| 0.9.0 | build 1 | Added emerald ore. | |||
| 0.12.1 | build 1 | Added nether quartz ore.
| |||
| Mining ores now gives experience. | |||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 |  The textures of all ores have been changed. | |||
| 1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.5 | The texture of diamond ore has been changed. | |||
| 1.16.0 | beta 1.16.0.51 | Added ancient debris. | |||
| beta 1.16.0.57 | Added nether gold ore. | ||||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU1 | CU1 | 1.00 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | Added coal, iron, lapis lazuli, gold, redstone, and diamond ores. |
| TU7 | All ores except iron and gold (which give experience when smelted) now drops experience points when mined. | ||||
| TU14 | 1.04 | Added emerald and nether quartz ores. | |||
| PlayStation 4 Edition | |||||
| 1.90 | The textures of all ores have been changed. | ||||
| New Nintendo 3DS Edition | |||||
| 0.1.0 | Added coal, iron, lapis lazuli, gold, redstone, diamond, emerald and nether quartz ores. | ||||
Gallery[edit]
All of the current overworld ores including emerald ore and diamond ore.
Trivia[edit]
- Ancient debris has two ways to generate, similar to gold ore.
- Since it is exclusive to only one Overworld biome, Emerald ore is actually rarer than ancient debris per chunk.
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
