Minecraft Ore Vein Finder
By the ChunkScan Team · Updated October 2026
Quick answer: To find the nearest ore vein, type your seed and the X and Z you stand at, and pick iron or copper: the list gives each vein's size, Y range and an ore block to dig to. Example: Java seed -4172144997902289642 from 0, 0 lists first a large iron vein (Y -57 to -8) at 125, -24, -137, 185 blocks away. Link a seed with /ore-vein-finder?seed=YOUR_SEED.
Find the nearest large and medium iron and copper veins from any spot in your world.
What ore veins are
Ore veins are the long, winding bands of ore that Java Edition 1.18 added deep under the hills. They are much bigger than normal ore blobs: a large vein runs for dozens of blocks and holds hundreds or thousands of ore blocks. Copper veins sit between Y 0 and Y 50 and are mostly granite with copper ore mixed in. Iron veins sit between Y -60 and Y -8 and are mostly tuff with iron ore. About one ore block in fifty is a raw copper or raw iron block, worth nine ingots once smelted.
How they generate
The world seed sets three noise fields. One decides where veins can be and which kind: copper where it is high, iron where it is low, and nothing in between. Two more draw the thin ridges that make the band itself. Inside the band, each block rolls whether it is filler, ore or plain stone, and a fourth noise leaves gaps. All of this comes from the seed alone, so this page works out every vein in your browser without loading the world, the same way our seed map draws its Ore veins layer.
Large, medium and small
We count the ore blocks of the whole vein, through every Y level it reaches. A medium vein holds at least 60 ore blocks and a large one at least 300; smaller veins are left out of the list. Each row gives the part of the vein nearest to you, the Y range it spans, and one ore block close to that part, so you know where to dig. Caves, water and air carved later take some blocks out, so a vein opened by a big cave holds less.
How to use it
Type your seed (run /seed in chat), then the X and Z you are standing at, shown on the F3 screen. Pick iron, copper or both. The list shows the ten nearest medium and large veins. Copy /tp puts a teleport command to the ore block on your clipboard; in survival, walk there and dig down to that Y instead. Open on the seed map shows the vein from above with the Ore veins layer on, together with caves, geodes and structures nearby.
Versions and editions
Ore veins only exist in 1.18 and newer, and their rules have not changed since, so the list is the same for every version from 1.18 on. For Bedrock Edition, pick Bedrock: another seed map's Bedrock ore vein marks fell inside our veins of the same ore on three seeds, so the veins follow the same noise as Java for the same number seed. We have not checked Bedrock's veins inside the game itself.
What Y level are iron and copper veins at?
Iron veins sit between Y -60 and Y -8, mostly in tuff, and copper veins between Y 0 and Y 50, mostly in granite. Each row in the list gives the Y range of that vein and the Y of one ore block in it, so dig down to that height at the listed X and Z, or follow the filler stone once you hit it.
How much ore is in a large vein?
A large vein holds at least 300 ore blocks through all its Y levels, and the biggest hold a few thousand. Mixed in are raw iron or raw copper blocks, each worth nine ingots, so one large vein can keep a beacon or a copper build going for a long time.
Why is part of a vein missing in my world?
Caves, ravines, aquifers and the surface are carved after the vein, so ore that falls inside a cave, under water or above the ground is gone. The vein itself comes from the seed alone, so the rest of it is where the list says.
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