Buried Treasure structure in Minecraft

Where Buried Treasure generates

Buried Treasure only generates on a Beach or a Snowy Beach. The game rolls a small chance for every beach chunk, about one in a hundred, so long coastlines hide several of them, but you will almost never dig one up by luck.

Two details make the chest easy to pin down once you know them. First, it always sits at the same spot inside its chunk: block 9, 9 counted from the chunk's north-west corner. Second, the game drops it down through the sand until it rests on the first layer of sandstone or stone below, then fills any gap around it with sand. So the chest is buried, but rarely deep.

How to read a Buried Treasure Map

A Buried Treasure Map comes from the map chest of a Shipwreck or from the chest of an Ocean Ruin. It shows the land around a beach with a red X. Hold it in your hand: a white marker shows your position and turns into a small dot when you are outside the map's area. Walk or sail until your marker sits on the X.

Then use your coordinates (the debug screen in Java). The chest's X and Z coordinates both leave a remainder of 9 when divided by 16: values like 9, 25, 41 or −7, −23. Stand on the matching block and dig straight down. If you do not hit the chest within a few blocks, check the neighbouring blocks before you widen the hole.

What's in the chest

The prize is the Heart of the Sea: exactly one in every buried treasure. Around it you will find iron and gold ingots, emeralds, sometimes diamonds, Prismarine Crystals, cooked fish and up to two Potions of Water Breathing. The chest can also hold an iron sword or spear, a leather chestplate, armor for a Nautilus and a few blocks of TNT. The TNT is just an item; nothing explodes when you open the chest.

Crafting a Conduit with the Heart of the Sea

A Conduit is crafted from one Heart of the Sea surrounded by eight Nautilus Shells. You can get shells by fishing, from Drowned that carry one in their off hand, and as a rare drop from a Nautilus. Place the Conduit underwater inside a frame of prismarine blocks and it activates.

Once active, it gives every player in range Conduit Power: you breathe underwater, see clearly and mine faster. A larger frame increases the range, and a complete frame also attacks hostile mobs nearby. That makes it the ideal companion for an Ocean Monument raid or an underwater base.

Tips to dig it up quickly

• Bring a shovel. It clears sand much faster than a pickaxe, and you will need a pickaxe only if the chest sits on stone.
• Watch the water. When the X is right at the shoreline, digging lets the sea in. Keep a few blocks to plug the hole, or drink one of the potions from the chest.
• Use the potions. The Water Breathing potions in the chest are perfect for exploring the shipwrecks and ruins around you.
• Keep the map. Once looted, the map still shows the same spot; label it in an anvil so you do not follow it twice.

✓ Checked in Java Edition 26.3 · updated 1 November 2026