A lava-filled cavern
Caverns or Caves are commonly-found cavities in the Stone layer of a map. Many caverns have tunnels branching off and winding in other directions, some of which connect to the surface of the map creating natural entries to the cavern. Caverns can be quite deep, extending from the surface all the way to the Bedrock layer, which is impossible to break through. These caverns are randomly generated so no two of them will look exactly alike, making guides hard to be formed. It can sometimes be attached to natural dungeons.
Caverns are expected to contain at least one type of exposed ore block. Hostile mobs often spawn in naturally occurred caverns so it is advisable to bring along a weapon if on any difficulty other than peaceful.
Caverns can be useful as a starting point for creating player-made dungeons and other underground structures with. Since it is a natural cave, it can save quite a bit of time on trying to find ore. However, caverns could be quite deep, like a pit, so accidentally breaking into one from above could inflict a lot of fall damage. Players should be aware of the presence of lava as it is one of the main risk factors of exploring caverns, even on peaceful.
Pits
A pit is a hole in the ground that falls straight down. Pits are usually found in caverns, or when mining down you may fall into one. Pits are a good way to go farther underground, but are dangerous because they can lead into lava, a dungeon, or the fall may kill the player. It is advised that the player should bring ladders or create a water elevator or stairway before exploring a pit.
Finding Caverns
There are a number of ways to find caverns. Below is a table, designed to make cavern-hunting easier.
| Method | Details |
|---|---|
| Exploring Surface | By exploring the surface of the map, there is a good chance that an exposed cavern can be found. |
| Digging | Digging around might uncover caverns, but it is not easy as the map is infinitely big. |
| Listening | By following the source of ambience, or the sound of mobs coming from underground, there is a big chance to find a cavern. It's also useful to follow sound of water. |
| Cartographer | Use 3rd party software (such as Cartograph) to make maps of caves. This can easily lead the player to Dungeons or Caverns. This is considered cheating by some players. |
| The Nether | Travelling to The Nether, going down roughly 20-30 blocks, and creating a new portal there will likely cause the earth portal to spawn in a cavern as a portal is spawned in the nearest suitable space for the portal. |
| Editing terrain.png | Using an image editing program to delete the grass texture from the terrain.png file and using it as a texture pack will result in grass being see-through when loaded in game, allowing the player to see all underground caves from the surface without digging or coordinating maps. |
| F3 | When F3 is pressed, mobs display a number over their head. This can be useful as it allows players to see a hostile mob's location when mining, which could lead the player to a cavern. |
Classification of Caverns
A cavern can be classified into 4 rates of cave systems.
Pocket Cave
A cave small enough to fit in your pocket. These aren't good for anything. They will only have about 10-18 blocks of air in it. You will not find ore, you will not find loot, it's just a little hole in the rock with a zombie in it.
Mini Cave
Barely a cave, short; not many ores... Many can be found near ground level however, some require digging. These often end near ground level as well, and usually are not closely linked with other caverns. They are also usually very far away from other caves. Usually stores a vein of coal and sometimes have multiple entrances.
Bountiful Cave
A Cave, short or medium; many, or an abundant selection of ores, including gold, diamond, and Redstone, some lava; and water may be found in these caves. Digging into the walls is likely to reveal another similarly sized cave, or sections of caves.
Rich Cave
A gigantic cave system, huge in size, usually yields every type of ore, lava rivers, diamonds, gold, redstone, dungeons can be found in these caves. There are usually many branches leading to ores or other sections of the cave. This often requires very little digging to reach other parts of the cave, as branches of the cavern are mostly open, and spans a great distance underground.