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The durability of iron tools is really starting to annoy me, but in all my hours of playing I've only stumbled across one deposit of diamond ore that provided around 7 gems.

What's the best way to locate more in Survival mode? Where is it most commonly found?

Diamond ore

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20  
Just outside the big ass area you're trying to mine, obviously! – badp♦ Sep 24 '10 at 21:03

4 Answers

up vote 34 down vote accepted

When in doubt, Find a Cave.

If you don't see anything on the surface, Dig Deeper.

Really, that's all there is to it. In general, you won't find Diamond much past 10 levels or so above Bedrock.

The graph below (taken from TR's interactive MC Block Distribution Chart) shows the density of Diamond in one generated world. 0 on the X axis represents bedrock. 255 is the top of the sky.

Density of Diamond

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+1 for the first sentence. Most resources I've found were in natural caves. But be warned, if you've ever looked at a cave map then you know that there's a real labyrinth down there. – Bobby Mar 6 '11 at 11:08
Aren't the first and second sentences, contradictory? The following sentences (and graph) are basically saying there are no diamonds above level 20, whereas caves can be at all levels. – Cyclops Mar 6 '11 at 14:17
4  
So you're saying, Lucy isn't in the sky with diamonds. – Amarok May 12 '12 at 5:53
up vote 8 down vote

Follow a path that's been previously mined out by water. All you have to do is replace the source block (the block from which water appears to be flowing), and the water will cease to flow, allowing you easy passage through the cave.

After you've stopped the flow of water, follow its former path. Not only will your path be carved out for you, but you'll be much more likely to find coal, gold, red ore and diamond.

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Interesting, I've never seen water go that deep before. As an alternative to blocking it off, you could use a ladder to create a bubble. – travis Oct 8 '10 at 18:36
3  
Often the mined-out shaft will split off into several shafts, and/or lead you to another water spring, which you can plug and repeat. Also, replacing the source block with stone or dirt is simply cheaper and easier than using ladders or signs. – Keaanu Oct 9 '10 at 18:12
up vote 4 down vote

One way I find lots of diamond is by making something I called Mining rooms. How you do this is dig a staircase type thing down until you're a couple blocks above bedrock. When you get there dig as far as you can right without moving and do the same thing to the left (your tunnel should look sorta like a "T" by now). Go into the right tunnel and dig a tunnel to the left(as long as you want). You then dig 9 blocks to the left. when you do that turn to the left once more and dig until you find your tunnel. Then dig up all the area in between the tunnels. Using this strategy I found 30 diamonds, 75 redstone, 36 iron, and loads of coal within an hour. Hope this helps

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+1 Exactly what I was thinking. Also, welcome to Gaming Stack Exchange! – Wipqozn Oct 23 '11 at 21:19
1  
@fireDude67 This is not Branch Mining. Chaseg is suggesting creating a couple tunnels which form an outline of a large rectangle, then you mine every block within the rectangle. Branch Mining is far more efficient and involves exposing the maximum possible surface area (and thus minerals) with the minimum possible amount of digging. It's far more efficient than the method Chaseg describes. – Jonathan Hobbs Oct 24 '11 at 6:59
up vote 0 down vote

For hunting diamond, dig down to bedrock. Diamonds only occur in the bottommost 10 levels of minecraft. Once you are at the proper depth, start digging exploratory branches until you find what you are after.

For more information on most efficent mining and efficent travel to the bedrock layer, see What's the most efficient Minecraft mining strategy?

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protected by Nick T Apr 28 '12 at 2:44

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