Iron Ore block in Minecraft

What it does

Ores are stone blocks with a resource embedded in them. Breaking one with a pickaxe of the right material gives that resource; with a weaker pickaxe, or by hand, it breaks for nothing. Wooden and golden pickaxes only handle coal, quartz and nether gold ore, stone and copper ones add iron, copper and lapis, and gold, redstone, diamond and emerald need at least iron.

Fortune raises the number of items an ore drops, which matters most for diamonds, emeralds, lapis and redstone. Silk Touch collects the ore block itself, so you can carry it home and decide later, or smelt it directly in a furnace.

Below the deepslate line, ores appear in their deepslate version: same drops, darker look, slower to mine. Ores that drop a finished item, like coal, diamond or lapis, also give experience when mined; iron, copper and gold ores drop raw metal to smelt instead.