Emerald Ore

Emerald ore is a rare mineral block that generates only in mountains and windswept hills biomes. It drops emeralds when mined, or itself if mined with a pickaxe with the Silk Touch enchantment. Deepslate emerald ore is a very rare variant of emerald ore that can generate in deepslate and tuff blobs.

Natural generation

Emerald ore generates in mountains and windswept hills biomes in the form of ore features, and attempts to generate 100 times per chunk in blobs of 0–4 ores. Emerald ore can be exposed to the sky. Specifically, it can be found in the following biomes:

Emerald ore generates from levels -16 to 320, having the greatest chance at level 232, and becoming less common toward either end of the range. However, because there is little to no terrain in the upper half of that range in regular worlds, the actual emerald ore quantity peaks around level 90 as seen in the empirical distribution graph below.

Emerald ore can replace stone, andesite, diorite, granite, tuff, and deepslate. Emerald ore that replaces tuff or deepslate becomes deepslate emerald ore, which is the rarest ore in Minecraft, rarer than normal emerald ore and ancient debris, even rarer than its second-place competitor, (non-deepslate) diamond ore. It generates only between the altitudes of -16 and 8 where deepslate naturally occurs, which happens to be toward the end of emerald ore distribution where it is extremely rare; its limitation to certain biomes further adds to its rarity.

Trivia

Even though emerald ore is rarer than diamond ore, emerald ore is generally found more often in mountains biomes than diamond ore, as the emerald ore blocks are generated in a more scattered fashion. Excluding blocks generated by structures, deepslate emerald ore is one of the rarest naturally-generated blocks in Minecraft, as emeralds only spawn in mountainous biomes, and spawn less at lower Y-levels. They also spawn in veins of 1, and require Silk Touch to drop themselves. Contrasting with the ore, trading with villagers yields easier non-ore emeralds, renewably.

Screenshots

EmeraldOreCave.png|A naturally occurring blob of emerald ore. Emerald Above Lava.png|A naturally occurring blob of emerald ore. Minecraft emerald Ore.png|Emerald ore found in the jagged peaks biome. Room of Emeralds.png|A room with placed emerald ores, including blocks of emerald and thrown emerald items. Emerald-Ores.png|Two blobs of emerald ores that generated nearly together. Emeralds in a Desert Biome.png|A block of emerald ore found in a plains biome. EmeraldExposed.jpg|A blob of emerald ore found in a mountain biome. Canyon intersecting a stronghold.png|A ravine with multiple ores, water and lava falls, and a stronghold bridge over it. Emeraldsclose.png|Multiple emerald ores close together.

Development images

Villager trading preview.png|The first image of the trading system released by Jeb. The emerald ore can be seen in the top right-hand corner with the original texture. Villagenhanced.jpg|An enhanced version of Jeb's screenshot showing the original ore texture more clearly. Emerald Ore 12w21a.png|The old "ruby" texture of emerald ore.