Journeyman Mining in Minecraft- Mining Pattern

Minecraft, as the name implies, is a game which at the very least heavily features mining.  I’m sure you know that by now, but it is important to remember that mining is key to everything you do besides building with wood and farming.  But it’s not just important to mine at all- it’s also important how you mine.

It is, of course, possible to get by just following the underground caverns laid in by the game before you start to play, but it takes a long time to build up spare resources that way and often involves trekking much farther from your home than is really safe.  Besides, who wants to get by when you can improve and advance instead?

Because of this, you will want to establish a mining pattern- a method by which you can be relatively sure you mine each area you dig in completely out of resources.  Digging out every stone, dirt, and gravel block adjacent to a vein before digging out the vein is certainly a part of that, but it is not so much a pattern as a way of ensuring you get the entirety of a single vein.

So what would a pattern be, then?  Well, you’re looking for a few basic things when you establish a mining pattern.  First of all, you want to make sure you don’t miss anything.  Second, you want to be sure you can be safe while you are mining.  And finally, you want to be certain you can find your way back home- you don’t want to construct a true labrynth of passages that you can’t decipher at all, that’ll just get you completely lost when you go mining.

While there are a number of different patterns that can be used- as many as anyone can dream up- I will be discussing a basic pattern that is simply useful and effective.  You do not have to use this pattern, but you can always fall back on it because it works well.

The basic pattern is essentially a pattern of hallways.  The first step is to dig into the ground to the depth you want.  Personally, I prefer to stop going down when I reach the second or third to last layer of regular stone- this ensures that I am deep enough to get plenty of redstone and (relatively speaking) a lot of diamonds for tools and armor- or trading if on a multiplayer server.

Once you reach that depth, pick a direction.  Laying torches every time it gets too dark, dig a single-block-wide passage in that direction until you either feel it is long enough or run across a cave, lava, or water.  Make sure you keep some stone handy in case you knock out a block and find a lava or water pool behind it that will try to flow out into your mine.  I could not possibly count the number of times digging without my cobble ready or just heedlessly fast has set me on fire.

If you like, you can also turn around and dig in the other direction until you reach a similar ending point.  Keep your path only one block wide, though how tall it is isn’t too important- as long as you don’t dig straight up and drop a stack of gravel onto your own head.

Once this hallway is complete, go ahead and dig out any ore pockets that you see in the walls.  It’ll make things a little irregular, but it won’t hamper your ability to mine and it can provide useful visual landmarks so you can more easily recall where in your mine you are at the moment.

After you have finished that, it is time to start your pattern.  Go to one end of the hallway you’ve made.  Alternately, you can step to where your path down intersects the hallway, and then move over to one side or the other by three blocks.  Then, dig a hallway directly away from your main hallway, digging out ore pockets as you go.  As with the original hall of your mine, stop when you either think you’ve gone far enough or encounter a natural stopping points such as a ravine or lava pool.  Then, return to your main hallway, face into the branch hallway, and step over to one side by three blocks and start another hall.  Keep doing this until you’ve got no more space to- and then turn around and do it to the other side of your main hall.

By using this pattern, you can ensure that no more than two blocks’ space is between any two of your hallways- and thus you have seen every single block in between your hallways.  Because of this, you will have made completely sure that you cannot have missed any resources in the midst of your mine, even the very small gold or diamond veins.

Other patterns are certainly possible- something with diagonals, or taking turns every so many paces, might be a perfectly good way to mine- but this basic pattern works as well.  If you prefer, go ahead and work out your own pattern.  Just keep in mind that you want to be safe and you want to be thorough- you never know when not spotting the side of one block can mean missing a six-block vein of diamonds or another resource you’ve been looking for.