Minecraft Wiki
Advertisement

This article is about Diamond ore. For the block, see Diamond (Block). For the gem, see Diamond (Gem).
DiamondOre

A naturally occurring diamond vein.

Diamond Ore is generally considered to be the most valuable and elusive block in the game. It can be mined for a diamond gem using an Iron or Diamond Pickaxe.

Uses

Diamonds can be used to make Shovels, Pickaxes, Axes, Hoes, Swords, and Armor of the highest quality. It is also a requisite ingredient in Jukeboxes, and solid diamond blocks.

Prospecting

Diamond Ore can be found in veins of 1-9 blocks (with larger concentrations being more rare). Diamond shows up at elevations ranging from 1 to 20 blocks above the bottom of the map.

  • Below elevation 18, it occurs in roughly 0.12% of rock.
  • This calculates to approximately 4 diamond ore per chunk.

Trivia

  • When diamond was first introduced, it was called emerald.[1]
  • If diamond ore is obtained via inventory hacking, smelting it will give the diamond gem.
  • Diamond, like other ores, is easier to find in caves and empty lava pools, as this gives more surface area.
  • Like other ores, diamond was about 50% more common in the quadrant south-west of the point (0,0) compared to the north-east quadrant. However, this was fixed in Beta 1.6.
  • In some vein formations, ores connect diagonally. Therefore it is recommended to mine around diamond ore. This also permits checking for lava.
  • Diamond Ore, along with other ores, appears in the background on the achievement page.
  • Diamonds are considered to be the rarest item in the game, but, due to a bug in 1.6 (and only 1.6), Clay was the rarest material in the game.
  • Diamond ore cannot be found or placed in Classic as of version 0.30.

References

Advertisement