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=== Aquifer === | === Aquifer === | ||
[[File:A lava lake.png|right|thumb| | [[File:A lava lake.png|right|thumb|A water aquifer and a lava aquifer meeting in a cave, kept apart by stone.]] | ||
Aquifers are the part of terrain generation that decides what fills every non-solid block: water, lava, air or, near the boundary between two bodies of fluid, stone. They produce the underground lakes, the lava lakes below Y=-10, the water and lava falls in caves, and the stone "rims" that keep neighboring bodies of fluid apart. Rivers and oceans are ''not'' produced by aquifers: they are filled by the global fluid rule below, which applies whether aquifers are enabled or not. Note that [[Minecraft:lava lake]]s are also generated underground, but are not aquifers. | |||
[[ | |||
The following describes ''[[Minecraft:Java Edition]]''. Aquifers were added in {{ver|1.18}} and the algorithm has been the same since. | |||
==== Global fluid rule ==== | |||
Every dimension has a fluid rule that depends only on the Y coordinate: | |||
* Below Y = min(−54, ''sea level''): lava, whose surface is at Y=-54. | |||
* Otherwise: the dimension's default fluid (water in the Overworld) up to ''sea level''. | |||
If two | Without aquifers this rule alone fills every cave: water below sea level and lava below Y=-54. This is why the Nether has its lava ocean at Y=32 and why the ''Caves'' [[Minecraft:world preset]] has water below Y=32 and lava below Y=-54. In a dimension whose sea level is below −54 (the ''Floating Islands'' preset, sea level −64) there is no lava layer at all. | ||
==== Aquifer cells ==== | |||
[[File:Aquifer Cross Section.jpg|thumb|A cross section of terrain near a coast: pockets of water at several different heights, each one an aquifer cell.]] | |||
When aquifers are enabled, the world is divided into cells of 16×12×16 blocks. The cell grid is shifted by 5 blocks on X and Z and by 1 block on Y relative to [[Minecraft:chunk]] boundaries. Each cell contains one randomly placed ''center'' (offset 0–9 on X and Z and 0–8 on Y inside the cell, chosen from the world seed and the cell coordinates). Each center carries a ''fluid status'': a fluid level and a fluid type, or "dry" for no fluid. | |||
For a given block, the game looks at the 12 cells around it (2×3×2: the block's own cell and the next one on X and Z, and the rows above and below on Y) and finds the four centers nearest to the block by squared Euclidean distance. If the nearest center is clearly closer than the second one (the squared distances differ by 25 or more), the block simply takes the nearest center's status: its fluid type if the block is below that center's fluid level, air otherwise. Because of this, aquifers form a three-dimensional [[Minecraft:wikipedia:Voronoi diagram|Voronoi]] pattern, and fluid levels change in abrupt steps at cell boundaries rather than smoothly. | |||
==== Fluid status of a cell ==== | |||
[[File:Aquifer meets ocean.png|thumb|A cave under the sea floor, flooded to sea level.]] | |||
[[File:Aquifer land entrance.png|thumb|A partially flooded cell that reaches the surface, its level capped at the terrain.]] | |||
The status of a center is computed from the ''preliminary surface level'' (a [[Minecraft:density function]], usually slightly below the actual terrain) sampled at 13 chunk offsets around the center: the center's own chunk, and 12 more chunks reaching 3 chunks west, 1 chunk east, and 1 chunk north and south. Each sampled surface is raised by 8 blocks before comparison. | |||
# If the bottom of the cell (center Y − 12) is above the raised surface of its own chunk, the cell uses the global fluid rule. Cells high above ground therefore contain only air. | |||
# If the top of the cell (center Y + 12) pokes above any sampled surface that lies below sea level, the cell is part of the sea: its level is sea level and its type is the default fluid. | |||
# Otherwise the cell is underground and its flooding is decided by noise, unless it lies in the ''exclusion'' region (see below), in which case it is dry. | |||
For an underground cell, the {{cd|fluid_level_floodedness}} noise (clamped to [−1, 1]) is compared against two thresholds. The thresholds depend on how far the cell is below the lowest sampled surface, but only if the center's own surface is below sea level; on land the depth does not matter. | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
! !! Surface above the center is under sea level, cell just below it !! Surface above the center is under sea level, cell 64+ blocks below it, or the center is on land | |||
|- | |||
| Fully flooded if noise > || −0.3 || 0.8 | |||
|- | |||
| Partially flooded if noise > || −0.8 || 0.4 | |||
|} | |||
Between those two depths the thresholds are interpolated linearly. In practice this means that cells under the sea floor are almost always flooded to sea level, while inland cells are mostly dry, with occasional partially flooded ones. | |||
* A '''fully flooded''' cell has its level at the global fluid level (sea level, or −54 for lava). | |||
* A '''partially flooded''' cell gets a level from the {{cd|fluid_level_spread}} noise, sampled once per 16×40×16 region: {{cd|40 × floor(Y / 40) + 20 + spread}}, where ''spread'' is in the range −10 to 10 in steps of 3. The level is additionally capped at the lowest sampled surface. Aquifer levels therefore cluster around Y = −20, 20, 60, 100, … (for example 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26 or 29 within the 0–40 band), and a partially flooded cell may lie above sea level, which is how lakes appear inside mountain caves. | |||
* Otherwise the cell is '''dry'''. | |||
[[File:Lava Aquifer.jpg|thumb|A large lava aquifer below Y=-10.]] | |||
'''Fluid type.''' A flooded cell contains the default fluid, except that it becomes '''lava''' when its level is at or below Y=-10 and the absolute value of the {{cd|lava}} noise, sampled once per 64×40×64 region, exceeds 0.3. Because of the coarse sampling, lava aquifers come in large contiguous patches. Aquifers in the Overworld above Y=-10 are therefore always water, and the lava layer below Y=-54 exists regardless of aquifers. | |||
'''Exclusion.''' Aquifers do not generate where {{cd|erosion < −0.225}} and {{cd|depth > 0.9}}, that is, deep below terrain with the lowest erosion values. This is the same region used to place the [[Minecraft:Deep Dark]] biome and extends somewhat beyond it, which is why deep dark caves are dry. | |||
==== Barriers ==== | |||
[[File:Aquifers of different levels.jpg|thumb|Two water bodies of different levels, separated by a stone barrier.]] | |||
[[File:Aquifer boundary.png|thumb|A barrier between two aquifers, with the thin stone "lid" above the lower one.]] | |||
When the two (or three) nearest centers are almost equally close to a block (their squared distances differ by less than 25) and their statuses differ, the game computes a ''pressure'' between them and adds it to the terrain density at that block. If the sum becomes positive, the block is generated as stone instead of fluid or air. This is what separates bodies of fluid with different levels or types and what produces the stone "rims" around underground lakes. | |||
The pressure depends on the block's height relative to the two fluid levels: | |||
* Between the two levels it is positive and highest in the middle. | |||
* Above the higher level it drops off quickly, so the stone "lid" over a lake is only a few blocks thick (up to about 5 blocks). | |||
* Below the lower level it drops off slowly, so the stone floor and walls under a lake can be up to about 23 blocks thick. | |||
* A water cell next to a lava cell always receives a strong fixed pressure, so water and lava are nearly always separated by stone. | |||
The {{cd|barrier}} noise adds a random component to the pressure in a narrow band around the fluid levels, which makes the barriers irregular rather than flat. Two cells with the same status have zero pressure between them, so a body of fluid spanning several cells has no internal walls. | |||
Stone placed by a barrier is ordinary stone: it is affected by [[Minecraft:surface rule]]s like any other terrain, which is why lake shores near the surface are covered in the biome's surface blocks. | |||
==== Flowing fluids ==== | |||
[[File:Aquifer levels.png|thumb|Water flowing from a higher aquifer down into a lower one.]] | |||
Fluid blocks generated near the boundary between cells with different statuses receive a [[Minecraft:Tick#Scheduled tick|scheduled tick]] after the chunk is generated. When such a block is next to air, the fluid starts flowing, which produces the waterfalls and lavafalls found in caves. Water generated directly above the lava layer (at Y=-54, when sea level is above it) is always scheduled. Fluid inside a single cell, or between cells with identical statuses, is never scheduled and stays still. | |||
==== Configuration ==== | |||
In [[Minecraft:custom world generation]], aquifers are controlled by the [[Minecraft:noise settings]]. Aquifers are enabled by the {{cd|aquifers_enabled}} boolean, with the {{cd|barrier}}, {{cd|fluid_level_floodedness}}, {{cd|fluid_level_spread}} and {{cd|lava}} density functions taken from the [[Minecraft:noise router]] and the exclusion region fixed to the deep dark region.{{until|java 26.3}} Aquifers are controlled by the optional {{cd|aquifers}} object, which holds the density functions {{cd|barrier}}, {{cd|fluid_level_floodedness}}, {{cd|fluid_level_spread}}, {{cd|lava}}, {{cd|exclusion}} and {{cd|surface_level}}; omitting the object disables aquifers.{{upcoming|java 26.3}} The {{cd|sea_level}} and {{cd|default_fluid}} fields of the noise settings define the global fluid rule. | |||
{{-}} | {{-}} | ||
Latest revision as of 11:03, 9 September 2026
Template:For Template:Split Template:Infobox structure
A cave (also known as a cavern) is a common Minecraft:terrain feature that generates in the Minecraft:Overworld and Minecraft:the Nether. Caves are usually found underground. They are open spaces of various sizes and shapes that often intersect with each other or with different Minecraft:generated structures, creating vast cave systems. They feature an abundance of Minecraft:ores, as well as hostile mobs that spawn in the darkness.
Generation
Caves are a part of Minecraft's terrain consisting of randomly generated cavities of Minecraft:air, Minecraft:water or Minecraft:lava, creating a hollow area and exposing other blocks generated with the terrain (such as Minecraft:stones and ores).
Caves generate at any Minecraft:altitude up to Y-level 256, and may span from the surface all the way to Y-level -59. Because of low Minecraft:light levels, hostile Minecraft:mobs and certain animals like Minecraft:bats and Minecraft:glow squids (only in water) often spawn in caves.
Caves come in two distinct types; noise caves and carver caves. Noise caves are generated along with the base terrain, while carver caves are added later on as generated features.
Noise caves
Noise caves are generated using a noise. They come in the form of cheese caves, spaghetti caves, and noodle caves.<ref name="21w06a">Template:Snap</ref> By adjusting noise frequency, hollowness (for cheese caves), and thickness (for spaghetti caves, noodle caves, and noise pillars), noise caves can vary in extremely diverse ways. When generating noise caves, the game firstly generates a random noise field, and "smudges" it using a mathematical trick called Perlin noise. These processes then result in a 3D noise image. Noise pillars also generate inside cave blobs.
Noise caves are a part of the base terrain generation, and so do not intersect generated structures or mineral deposits. They are typically decorated with biome-specific features and decoration such as grass, sand, snow, or trees at higher y-levels, or dripstone pillars or clay deltas at lower y-levels. This is important, as cave noise is dually used to generate important Overworld terrain features such as overhangs or floating islands on the surface.<ref>Template:YouTube link</ref>
Cheese cave
Cheese caves are pocket areas of the underground that come in various sizes. Cheese caves offer large and open spaces, being the largest cave type in the game. They frequently generate noise pillars and expose many Minecraft:ores. When generating, the black part of noise image becomes stone or deepslate, and white part becomes air, making it resemble cheese with many holes.
Spaghetti cave
Spaghetti caves are long, narrow, winding caves and are a bit similar to small or medium carver caves, but longer. When generating, the edge of black and white part of noise image becomes air, making it look like long and wide spaghetti.
Noodle cave
Noodle caves are a thinner and squigglier variant of spaghetti caves. They consist of tunnels usually 1 to 5 blocks in width. When generating, the edge of black and white part of noise image becomes air, making it look like long and thin noodles.
Noise pillar
Noise pillars look like large dripstones or speleothems, but consist usually of stone. They can be found in any type of noise cave, making caves more realistic.
Aquifer
Aquifers are the part of terrain generation that decides what fills every non-solid block: water, lava, air or, near the boundary between two bodies of fluid, stone. They produce the underground lakes, the lava lakes below Y=-10, the water and lava falls in caves, and the stone "rims" that keep neighboring bodies of fluid apart. Rivers and oceans are not produced by aquifers: they are filled by the global fluid rule below, which applies whether aquifers are enabled or not. Note that Minecraft:lava lakes are also generated underground, but are not aquifers.
The following describes Minecraft:Java Edition. Aquifers were added in Template:Ver and the algorithm has been the same since.
Global fluid rule
Every dimension has a fluid rule that depends only on the Y coordinate:
- Below Y = min(−54, sea level): lava, whose surface is at Y=-54.
- Otherwise: the dimension's default fluid (water in the Overworld) up to sea level.
Without aquifers this rule alone fills every cave: water below sea level and lava below Y=-54. This is why the Nether has its lava ocean at Y=32 and why the Caves Minecraft:world preset has water below Y=32 and lava below Y=-54. In a dimension whose sea level is below −54 (the Floating Islands preset, sea level −64) there is no lava layer at all.
Aquifer cells
When aquifers are enabled, the world is divided into cells of 16×12×16 blocks. The cell grid is shifted by 5 blocks on X and Z and by 1 block on Y relative to Minecraft:chunk boundaries. Each cell contains one randomly placed center (offset 0–9 on X and Z and 0–8 on Y inside the cell, chosen from the world seed and the cell coordinates). Each center carries a fluid status: a fluid level and a fluid type, or "dry" for no fluid.
For a given block, the game looks at the 12 cells around it (2×3×2: the block's own cell and the next one on X and Z, and the rows above and below on Y) and finds the four centers nearest to the block by squared Euclidean distance. If the nearest center is clearly closer than the second one (the squared distances differ by 25 or more), the block simply takes the nearest center's status: its fluid type if the block is below that center's fluid level, air otherwise. Because of this, aquifers form a three-dimensional Voronoi pattern, and fluid levels change in abrupt steps at cell boundaries rather than smoothly.
Fluid status of a cell
The status of a center is computed from the preliminary surface level (a Minecraft:density function, usually slightly below the actual terrain) sampled at 13 chunk offsets around the center: the center's own chunk, and 12 more chunks reaching 3 chunks west, 1 chunk east, and 1 chunk north and south. Each sampled surface is raised by 8 blocks before comparison.
- If the bottom of the cell (center Y − 12) is above the raised surface of its own chunk, the cell uses the global fluid rule. Cells high above ground therefore contain only air.
- If the top of the cell (center Y + 12) pokes above any sampled surface that lies below sea level, the cell is part of the sea: its level is sea level and its type is the default fluid.
- Otherwise the cell is underground and its flooding is decided by noise, unless it lies in the exclusion region (see below), in which case it is dry.
For an underground cell, the Template:Cd noise (clamped to [−1, 1]) is compared against two thresholds. The thresholds depend on how far the cell is below the lowest sampled surface, but only if the center's own surface is below sea level; on land the depth does not matter.
| Surface above the center is under sea level, cell just below it | Surface above the center is under sea level, cell 64+ blocks below it, or the center is on land | |
|---|---|---|
| Fully flooded if noise > | −0.3 | 0.8 |
| Partially flooded if noise > | −0.8 | 0.4 |
Between those two depths the thresholds are interpolated linearly. In practice this means that cells under the sea floor are almost always flooded to sea level, while inland cells are mostly dry, with occasional partially flooded ones.
- A fully flooded cell has its level at the global fluid level (sea level, or −54 for lava).
- A partially flooded cell gets a level from the Template:Cd noise, sampled once per 16×40×16 region: Template:Cd, where spread is in the range −10 to 10 in steps of 3. The level is additionally capped at the lowest sampled surface. Aquifer levels therefore cluster around Y = −20, 20, 60, 100, … (for example 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26 or 29 within the 0–40 band), and a partially flooded cell may lie above sea level, which is how lakes appear inside mountain caves.
- Otherwise the cell is dry.
Fluid type. A flooded cell contains the default fluid, except that it becomes lava when its level is at or below Y=-10 and the absolute value of the Template:Cd noise, sampled once per 64×40×64 region, exceeds 0.3. Because of the coarse sampling, lava aquifers come in large contiguous patches. Aquifers in the Overworld above Y=-10 are therefore always water, and the lava layer below Y=-54 exists regardless of aquifers.
Exclusion. Aquifers do not generate where Template:Cd and Template:Cd, that is, deep below terrain with the lowest erosion values. This is the same region used to place the Minecraft:Deep Dark biome and extends somewhat beyond it, which is why deep dark caves are dry.
Barriers
When the two (or three) nearest centers are almost equally close to a block (their squared distances differ by less than 25) and their statuses differ, the game computes a pressure between them and adds it to the terrain density at that block. If the sum becomes positive, the block is generated as stone instead of fluid or air. This is what separates bodies of fluid with different levels or types and what produces the stone "rims" around underground lakes.
The pressure depends on the block's height relative to the two fluid levels:
- Between the two levels it is positive and highest in the middle.
- Above the higher level it drops off quickly, so the stone "lid" over a lake is only a few blocks thick (up to about 5 blocks).
- Below the lower level it drops off slowly, so the stone floor and walls under a lake can be up to about 23 blocks thick.
- A water cell next to a lava cell always receives a strong fixed pressure, so water and lava are nearly always separated by stone.
The Template:Cd noise adds a random component to the pressure in a narrow band around the fluid levels, which makes the barriers irregular rather than flat. Two cells with the same status have zero pressure between them, so a body of fluid spanning several cells has no internal walls.
Stone placed by a barrier is ordinary stone: it is affected by Minecraft:surface rules like any other terrain, which is why lake shores near the surface are covered in the biome's surface blocks.
Flowing fluids
Fluid blocks generated near the boundary between cells with different statuses receive a scheduled tick after the chunk is generated. When such a block is next to air, the fluid starts flowing, which produces the waterfalls and lavafalls found in caves. Water generated directly above the lava layer (at Y=-54, when sea level is above it) is always scheduled. Fluid inside a single cell, or between cells with identical statuses, is never scheduled and stays still.
Configuration
In Minecraft:custom world generation, aquifers are controlled by the Minecraft:noise settings. Aquifers are enabled by the Template:Cd boolean, with the Template:Cd, Template:Cd, Template:Cd and Template:Cd density functions taken from the Minecraft:noise router and the exclusion region fixed to the deep dark region.Template:Until Aquifers are controlled by the optional Template:Cd object, which holds the density functions Template:Cd, Template:Cd, Template:Cd, Template:Cd, Template:Cd and Template:Cd; omitting the object disables aquifers.Template:Upcoming The Template:Cd and Template:Cd fields of the noise settings define the global fluid rule.
Carver caves
Carver caves' structure typically consists of a series of irregular tunnels branching off and winding in other directions, which may cut through to the surface, creating natural entrances to the cave.
A carver cave may have a main room (aka circular void) connecting 1 to 4 trunks, each trunk with zero or two branches. It may also have no main room, only one trunk and zero or two branches on it, that is, an I-shaped or T-shaped cave. There is a one-in-four probability of generating a cave with the main room, and another three-quarters probability of generating an I-shaped or T-shaped cave.
The main room is an ellipsoidal void of various size. It sometimes may be too small to be found, making the cave looks I-shaped or T-shaped. But as long as the cave is not I-shaped or T-shaped, it must have a main room.
For each trunk or branch, it is usually thin at both ends and thick in the middle. However, the thickness does not vary so evenly. It sometimes flickers thick and thin as it advances. Sometimes it becomes so thin that there are some interruptions. Multiple interruptions make it look like a series of continuous bubbles. The length from the root of the trunk to the top of a branch varies from 85 to 112 blocks. The trunk and branches are curved, and they are often intertwined with each other to make complex caves. Multiple caves sometimes merge with each other making them more messy and spacious.
The ceiling of the main room, trunks, and branches is usually round, while the floor is usually flat.
In contrast with noise caves' gradual and natural openings, carver caves frequently cut straight through surface blocks and generated features, either destroying them or inhibiting their generation. Minecraft:Sand often falls into caves generated near the surface of a Minecraft:desert or Minecraft:beach; craters in the sand can alert the player to caves below the surface. Caves cannot cut through Minecraft:red sand nor Minecraft:snow blocks, despite these generating as a surface block in several biomes.<ref>Template:Cite bug</ref> They frequently intersect and expose other natural structures such as other caves, Minecraft:monster rooms, carver Minecraft:canyons, and Minecraft:mineshafts.
Overworld carver cave
The carver cave generation in the Overworld starts from Y=-56 to Y=180. The probability of cave generation is higher at Y=-56 to Y=47.
Their main rooms vary from roughly 1 to 14 blocks in height, and from roughly 5 to 15 blocks in diameter. The horizon thickness of trunks varies from roughly 2 to 38, while the vertical thickness of trunks varies from roughly 1 to 36. The horizon thickness of branches varies from roughly 2 to 7, while the vertical thickness of trunks varies from roughly 1 to 7.
A cave may connect to the surface of the terrain, creating natural entrances to the cave. They sometimes connect to the sea. Caves and Minecraft:mineshafts also regularly contain at least minor Minecraft:water or Minecraft:lava flows as well as caves being made up of a number of aquifers of water and lava.
Some biome decoration might appear as well. For example, in Minecraft:jungle biomes, Minecraft:vines generate in carver caves near the surface, while Minecraft:sculk and related blocks may appear in the Minecraft:deep dark.
Nether carver cave
The carver cave generation in the Nether starts from Y=0 to Y=126.
Their main rooms vary from roughly 2 to 8 blocks in height, and from roughly 5 to 15 blocks in diameter. Compared to caves in the Overworld, the vertical thickness of the caves in the Nether is higher. The horizontal thickness of trunks varies from roughly 3 to 15, while the vertical thickness of trunks varies from roughly 12 to 64. The horizontal thickness of branches varies from roughly 3 to 5, while the vertical thickness of trunks varies from roughly 12 to 22.
Gallery
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Several carver caves.
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Cave with main room and a trunk.
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Cave with main room and two trunks.
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An I-shaped cave.
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A T-shaped cave.
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Cave with bubbles.
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A T-shaped cave with a wide trunk.
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A small cave with a Minecraft:zombie inside.
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A medium cave with a Minecraft:skeleton.
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A sizable cave connected to several others.
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A big cave with many types of ores and monsters.
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An above-ground circular void.
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An example of a cave connected with the sea.
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A Nether carver exposing Minecraft:bedrock
Underwater carver caves
Underwater caves are completely flooded caves that may have Minecraft:underwater magma.
Being completely underwater, only the magma blocks provide any air for entities to breathe, since they generate Minecraft:bubble columns. They sometimes have Minecraft:seagrass, but Minecraft:kelp cannot generate due to being exposed to the sky, unlike sea-access caves.
Structures and features
Monster room
Template:Main Monster rooms, formerly called dungeons, are structure-like Minecraft:features that appear in the underground that contain Minecraft:monster spawners. They are small rooms made of cobblestone and mossy cobblestone and contain a monster spawner that produces either zombies, skeletons, or spiders and up to 2 Minecraft:chests. Finding a monster room without a chest is unlikely but possible.
Ancient city
Template:Main An ancient city is a palatial structure found in the deep dark, harboring chests containing items that cannot be found anywhere else or that help a player avoid a warden. An ancient city features a large palace that stretches throughout a deep dark biome. The palace is made up of long corridors with gray wool floors to prevent vibrations as well as some smaller ruins off to the side of the main corridors, which contain between one or two loot chests. The city center features a frame resembling a warden's head, where there are reinforced deepslate blocks, which is an unobtainable material in Survival mode. Other unique blocks such as soul lanterns and candles as well as different forms of deepslate can be found here.
Mineshaft
Template:Main A mineshaft is a generated structure found underground or underwater, having 3×3 mazes of tunnels with cave spiders and ores exposed on the walls or floor regularly.
Lava lake
Lava lakes may generate underground with an air pocket, which makes them look like small caves with lava aquifers.
Amethyst geode
Template:Main An amethyst geode is a Minecraft:feature found in the underground of the Minecraft:Overworld. Amethyst geodes contain Minecraft:smooth basalt, Minecraft:calcite, and are the only source, apart from Ancient City and Trial Chambers chests, of amethyst items and blocks.
Cave biomes
There are some Minecraft:biomes generated only in caves in the Overworld.
Dripstone caves
Template:Main A dripstone cave is an underground biome often found far away from oceans, in areas with high Minecraft:continentalness values. It features a landscape covered by speleothems, taking the form of patches of Minecraft:pointed dripstone and large Minecraft:dripstone block pillars. Small sources of water can be found on the floor. Minecraft:Drowned can spawn here in aquifers.
Lush caves
Template:Main A lush cave is an underground biome that is usually found below biomes with high Minecraft:humidity values, such as Minecraft:dark forests and Minecraft:old growth taigas. It is filled with unique flora, Minecraft:cave vines covering the roof, and Minecraft:clay pools of Minecraft:water on the bottom. This biome can be found underground below Minecraft:azalea trees. Minecraft:Axolotls and Minecraft:tropical fish can spawn here.
Deep dark
Template:Main The deep dark mainly generates deep underground in the deepslate layer, usually in mountainous areas with low erosion values, and never below an ocean. The floor in this biome often has patches of Minecraft:sculk blocks surrounded by Minecraft:sculk veins, which include sculk-related blocks such as Minecraft:sculk shriekers, Minecraft:sculk sensors, and Minecraft:sculk catalysts. No mobs spawn naturally in this biome, but if a player triggers the sculk shriekers a certain amount of times, the Minecraft:warden, a powerful hostile mob, may appear, giving the player the Minecraft:Darkness effect. This biome may contain one or more Minecraft:ancient cities.
Sulfur caves
Template:Main The sulfur caves are a cave Minecraft:biome that consist of Minecraft:sulfur, Minecraft:sulfur spike and Minecraft:cinnabar blocks, where Minecraft:sulfur cubes and Minecraft:cave spiders naturally spawn. Minecraft:Sulfur pools generate in this biome, which include a block of Minecraft:potent sulfur. Minecraft:Sulfur springs can spawn above a sulfur cave, indicating the presence of one nearby.
History
Announcement
Java Edition
Bedrock Edition
Legacy Console Edition
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
Issues
Trivia
- Before they were added to Minecraft, large underground lakes were already present in Minecraft:Minicraft.
Gallery
Carvers
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A cave in early Classic.
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A cave in Classic 0.30.
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A wormhole entrance.
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A Minecraft:dead bush in a Minecraft:badlands cave.
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A cave entrance found in a Minecraft:Birch Forest biome.
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A cave with all seven types of Overworld ore.
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An entrance generated in a badlands biome.
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A cave generated near the surface of a jungle biome, causing vines to grow on its wall.
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Various ores.
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A water cave, with water flowing inside.
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The inside of a cave near the surface of badlands.
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A cave that generated underneath an ocean.
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Unusually repetitive cave generation seen in Minecraft:Spectator mode.
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A deep cave entrance.
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Natural sandstone blocking sand from entering a cave system.
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Dark cave entrance.
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Mobs that spawned in a unlit cave.
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Cave entrance in a Minecraft:desert biome.
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A circular cave entrance generated in snowy plains biome.
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Huge cave generated inside a hillside.
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Pitch-black cave.
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In the desert, players have to be careful about mining in the ceiling, as this can cause a cave-in and easily kill the player.
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Another example of a mega cave with a Minecraft:mineshaft.
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Cave entrance in a desert.
Mojang screenshots
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Carvers didn't generate below Y=0 in early caves & cliffs snapshots.
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Cave entrance in a badlands biome.
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Cave entrance in a desert biome.
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A cave full of monsters in Bedrock Edition.
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A cave in 1.17.
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A cave entrance with dripstone.
Noise caves
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Alpha's characteristic terrain quirks were generated just like modern cheese caves, though limited to higher y-axes.
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The start of a spaghetti cave.
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A spaghetti cave winding through the underground.
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An X-ray view of a spaghetti cave.
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Stone speleothems in a cave.
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A noise cave with varying sizes of speleothems.
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A noise cave with thick, clustered pillars.
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A more open cave with narrower pillars.
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Tall pillars in a cave.
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A noise cave below Y=0.
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A deepslate pillar in a noise cave.
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Multiple ores, found in the new big cave.
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A large cave underground, with ferns growing in it.
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A large cave.
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Another cave.
Mojang screenshots
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A world full of cheese caves.
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Ores in a cave.
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Ores in a cave.
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A huge cave full of lava from Caves & Cliffs development.
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An even huger cave full of lava from Cave & Cliffs development.
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A waterfall in a cave.
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A big cave with a hanging mineshaft.
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A cave exit.
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A dark cave full of monsters.
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A dark cave with monsters.
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A dark cave with lava.
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A comparison of a lava lake between Template:JE (left) and Template:BE (right).
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Lots of monsters in a cave.
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A tall cave full of lava.
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A large cave entrance.
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A cave that opens to a mountainside.
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A player in a mountain cave.
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Big lavafalls in a big cave.
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A big cave.
Aquifers
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An entrance to an aquifer from land.
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An aquifer boundary, creating an underground lake.
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An aquifer meets an ocean.
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Magma blocks on the floor of an aquifer, creating bubble columns.
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A tiny aquifer, made up of six water sources.
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A large aquifer with narrow pillars.
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The differing water levels of several aquifers.
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An aquifer below Y=0.
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A water and a lava aquifer that generated next to each other. Note the lush caves in the back.
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Partially-flooded canyon cave.
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A flooded cave.
Mojang screenshots
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A dark flooded cave.
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A cross section showing caves and aquifers.
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A lava aquifer and water aquifer.
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A water aquifer and lava aquifer. There is a mine in the background.
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The result of aquifers being too big.
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Aquifers in development.
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Aquifers in development.
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Aquifers in development.
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Aquifers in development.
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An underwater cave.
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An underwater cave.
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An underwater cave.
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Boating in a cave.
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A cave with water and pillars.
Hollows
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A hollow formed by the terrain generator.
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A larger hollow with a lake inside.
Cracks
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Crack carvers from the caves & cliffs snapshots.
Mojang screenshots
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Light shining through cracks in a cave ceiling.
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A cave lit by light from cracks.
Biomes
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The lush caves and dripstone caves meet.
In other media
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Artwork of Minecraft:Steve in a cave
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A cave as it appears in Template:MCD
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A cave as it appears in Minecraft:Minecraft Mini-Series
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A Template:AMCM as it appears in Template:AMCM
See also
- Minecraft:Ambience, sounds that can be heard around and within dark caves.
- A guide to exploring caves
References
Template:Navbox terrain features
Minecraft:de:Höhle Minecraft:es:Cueva Minecraft:fr:Caverne Minecraft:hu:Barlang Minecraft:it:Caverna Minecraft:ja:洞窟 Minecraft:ko:동굴 Minecraft:nl:Grot Minecraft:pl:Jaskinia Minecraft:pt:Caverna Minecraft:ru:Пещера Minecraft:th:ถ้ำ Minecraft:uk:Печера Minecraft:zh:洞穴