Ore Distribution

How ore distribution actually works

Every ore in the game is placed by one or more "distribution" curves that describe how likely a vein is to generate at each Y level. A triangle distribution has a single peak Y level where placement attempts are most frequent, then falls off in a straight line toward both edges of its spawn range until it hits zero right at the boundary. A uniform distribution is flatter: the chance of a vein spawning is roughly the same at every Y level inside its range, then drops to zero outside it. Several ores (coal, iron, gold, diamond, ancient debris) are actually the sum of two or more overlapping distributions, which is why their in-game frequency graph looks lumpy rather than a single clean triangle.

"Veins per chunk" is the average number of ore clusters the generator attempts to place in each 16×16 column, before any are discarded for overlapping stone/terrain or for being exposed to air. It is a generation-attempt count, not a guarantee — a chunk can end up with more or fewer veins than the average, and some attempts fail entirely if they land in air, in already-placed liquid, or outside solid stone.

Mining strategy per ore

Diamond & redstone: both peak at the very bottom of the world, so a branch mine carved around Y -59 catches the best density of each at once without extra digging.

Iron: tunnel around Y 16 for the common small deposits, but keep an eye out near mountain peaks and badlands cliffs above Y 200 — the large iron vein clusters up there can outproduce a normal branch mine per block traveled.

Gold: mine around Y -16 almost everywhere, but if you are already exploring a badlands biome, gold shows up in useful amounts as high as Y 32-256 — no need to dig all the way down there.

Copper & lapis: copper peaks around Y 48 (handy since it overlaps normal cave exploration depth), lapis peaks at Y 0, right where deepslate begins.

Emerald: skip branch mining entirely — it only spawns in mountain-type (Windswept Hills) biomes, so surface-exploring exposed mountain stone and cliffs around Y 232 is far more efficient than digging for it.

General tip: avoid mining through wide-open caves when chasing diamond or other deep ores. Veins that end up exposed to an air pocket during generation have a real chance of being deleted outright, so a sealed branch mine through solid stone preserves more of the ore that the game actually placed.

FAQ

What Y level should I mine at for diamonds? Y -59 is the statistical best — it sits right at the peak of every overlapping diamond distribution, giving the highest combined density of the roughly 13 veins per chunk the game places.

Does exposed ore really get deleted? Yes. Diamond veins (and to a lesser extent other deep ores) that generate touching open air/caves have a chance — roughly 50–100% depending on how exposed the vein is — of being silently removed during worldgen, which is part of why strip-mining through sealed stone finds more ore than exploring open caverns.

Why does gold spawn so much higher in badlands? Badlands (mesa) biomes carry a special extra gold distribution layered on top of the normal one, spawning gold from Y 32 up to Y 256. It is a biome-specific bonus, not a change to the normal Y -16 gold layer everywhere else.

Is the Nether the same for every ore? No — ancient debris is a narrow triangle peaking at Y 16 overlapped with a much wider uniform band, and is deliberately rare, while nether gold ore and quartz are both broad, flat, common uniform distributions across almost the whole vertical range of the Nether.