Hadal MinecraftOre Distribution 26.3 - Best Y-Levels for Every Ore
A cross-section of the world drawn from the game's own worldgen odds. Drag to set your mining depth, click an ore column to inspect it.
Quick answers
Best Y-Level for Each Ore
Minecraft 26.3Values come straight from the server's worldgen files. Click a row to inspect that ore in the cross-section above.
How it works
How Ore Generation Works
Batches, triangles and flat bands
Every ore spawns in one or more batches. Each batch picks its vein centres with either a triangle (two random numbers added together, so the middle is most likely) or a uniform band where every layer is equally likely. A column above is the sum of an ore's batches, scaled to that ore's own peak: compare shapes between columns, and use the inspector for absolute numbers.
Half the diamonds are below bedrock
Three of the four diamond batches use a triangle from Y -144 to Y 16, peaking at the world floor. Every attempt that lands below Y -64 is lost, which is why diamond density keeps rising all the way down and why only about 7.6 of 13.1 attempted veins per chunk exist.
Air exposure
Some batches skip each ore block that would touch air: 50% for most diamond, deep gold and lower coal, 70% for large diamond veins, and 100% for the buried diamond, buried lapis and all ancient debris. Those only exist fully enclosed in stone, so strip mining through solid rock finds far more than walking caves.
Biomes
Emerald only generates in mountain biomes and gets denser with height. Badlands add 50 gold veins per chunk between Y 32 and 256. Dripstone Caves use copper veins twice the normal size. In the Nether, Basalt Deltas double quartz and gold. Pick a biome above to see the difference.
Where the numbers come from
Read from this server's own Minecraft 26.3 jar: the placed_feature files for counts and heights, each biome's feature list, and vein sizes and air-skip chances from the game code. Every chunk of this world was generated by 26.3, so the chart matches it exactly. Positions are vein centres; a vein can spill a block or two either side.