Soul Sand

Soul Sand

Transparency	No
Luminance	No
Blast resistance	2.5
Tool
Renewable	No
Stackable	Yes (64)
Flammable	No
Drops	Itself
Data value	dec: 88 hex: 58 bin: 1011000
Name	soul_sand

	“	Only in the fiery caverns of the Nether, amid columns of lava and flame-belching Ghasts, will you find this creepy material in abundance. At a quick glance it might look like a ruddier version of cobblestone, but then you look a little closer - are those screaming faces etched into its surface? Eep!	„
		—Marsh Davies

Soul sand is a block only naturally found in the Nether.

Obtaining

Soul sand can be mined with any tool, or without a tool, but shovels are the quickest.

Block	Soul Sand
Hardness	0.5
Tool
Breaking time
Hand	0.75
Wooden	0.4
Stone	0.2
Iron	0.15
Diamond	0.1
Golden	0.1

Natural generation

Soul sand is found below Y=65 in the Nether, generally in four-block-deep layers. It is also found naturally in nether wart rooms of nether fortresses.

Usage

Soul sand slows the movement of any mob or player, and causes them to sink 2 pixels into the block while walking on it. Its slowing effect is increased when placed in water, or above ice, packed ice, or slime blocks. It can also suffocate mobs which are smaller than a slab, namely silverfish and endermite.

Growing nether wart

Soul sand is used for growing nether wart, a primary base ingredient for many varieties of potions. Nether wart is planted on soul sand (like seeds on farmland), and at full maturity produces multiple nether wart when harvested.

Withers

The wither build configuration.

4 blocks of soul sand are used in the construction of a wither.

Video

Note: The video states that one-way doors can be made with soul sand. This was a bug that was fixed in 1.8. The video also does not state soul sand's usage in building the wither.

History

Alpha
8 October 2010					Soul sand first appears on Notch's blog.
1.2.0					Added soul sand, which generates in the newly added Nether dimension.
Beta
1.6.6					One can get out of soul sand to another block while sneaking.
Official release
1.0.0			Beta 1.9-pre1		Added nether warts, which can be grown on soul sand.
			Beta 1.9-pre6		Shovels now mine soul sand faster.
1.4.2			12w36a		Wither skeleton skulls can be placed on a formation of soul sand to create a wither.
			12w38a		Soul sand has new sounds when being walked on.
1.5			13w02a		In texture packs, soul sand now uses /textures/blocks/hellsand.png
1.8			14w17a		Silverfish and endermites take damage if they are walking on soul sand.
			14w32b		One-way doorways can no longer be made with soul sand.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.12.1			build 1		Added soul sand.
0.16.0			build 4		Can now be used to spawn the wither.
Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added soul sand.
TU19	CU7	1.12			Soul sand can be used to build the wither.

Trivia

• Soul sand can generate on the floor of caverns and lava pools below Y=60 only if it generated in that same column at Y=60 or above.
• Because soul sand is not as high as a full block, standing near lava while on soul sand will set you on fire.
• If a water current is pushing you diagonally against a wall and Soul Sand is the block adjacent to your head when the current ends, it will cause you to jump.
• If snow or carpet is over soul sand, the effects of it being a partial block are avoided, as you will be walking on the cover block, not the soul sand.
• Due to the ability to reset the Nether in the console edition, soul sand is renewable in that edition. Although you can reset the Nether in the Java Edition by deleting the DIM-1 folder in a Minecraft world file, some may consider this cheating. Also, explored nether fortresses will disappear if you do not delete data/Fortress.dat that stores data of nether fortresses.
• Walking on soul sand will visibly darken the sky in the Overworld; this effect is less noticeable during the night.
  • This is because of its partial-block nature in combination with the fact that the color of the sky reflects the light level the player is standing in. However, because soul sand is opaque, the player is considered to be in absolute darkness. This may also occur with slabs and other partially-solid blocks that the game considers opaque.
• Soul sand has two little circles on one half of the top, and that half always points toward the west, allowing for easy direction finding in the Nether without using the debug screen.

Gallery

• 

  Naturally occurring soul sand

Issues

Issues relating to “Soul Sand” are maintained on the issue tracker. Report issues there.

References

Blocks

View at: Template:Blocks/content [edit]