Minecraft Amethyst Shards can be mined from Amethyst Geodes, the massive chunks of basalt found buried underground. Amethyst Geodes may look like ordinary stone from the outside, but they're full of Amethyst resources on the inside, including Amethyst Clusters and Budding Amethyst.
By searching for an Amethyst Geode, you will not only get a fancy purple building block, but also an ingredient needed to craft Tinted Glass or a Spyglass. Here's how to find Amethyst Geodes and obtain Amethyst Shards to use in your Minecraft crafting.
Where to find Amethyst Geodes in Minecraft
To find an Amethyst Geode in Minecraft, it’s best to just go underground and start mining. Although Amethyst Geodes can spawn as deep as Minecraft Diamonds, you don’t necessarily have to dig that deep, as Amethyst geodes can spawn between Y-level -64 and Y-level 30. Geodes are usually not that hard to spot as they're very big and often cracked, which means that you might see the faint glowing light from a distance. If they aren't cracked, they'll appear as the boulder-shaped structure shown in the picture above - that dark, round rock formation is an Amethyst Geode.
Keep an eye out for the outer layer, smooth basalt, while mining. Break through this first layer to find calcite, and then continue to find the amethyst. Inside, you’ll find Blocks of Amethyst, Budding Amethyst, Amethyst Buds, and Amethyst Clusters. Let’s go over which is which:
How to get Amethyst Shards in Minecraft from Amethyst Clusters
Minecraft Netherite is very valuable but a lot harder to get that Amesthyst Shards!
Amethyst Shards are dropped from the growing amethyst crystals called Amethyst Clusters. These clusters can be found inside Amethyst Geodes. If you mine amethyst clusters, you get Minecraft Amethyst Shards in return, and they can be used to craft a few particular items. In other words, you won't find this underground resource as randomly as, for example, Minecraft Copper; you need to search for Amethyst geodes specifically.
It’s important to only mine the fully grown ones, as the smaller Minecraft Amethyst Buds won’t drop any Amethyst Shards. There are three growth stages before an Amethyst Bud becomes an Amethyst Cluster. Take a look at the picture above to distinguish them!
Fully formed Amethyst Clusters drop two Minecraft Amethyst Shards when broken with any other tool, and four when mined with a pickaxe. The number of Amethyst Shards that drop can further increase by using 'Fortune', a Minecraft enchantment. If you want to collect the cluster itself, use a pickaxe with the Silk Touch enchantment.
Minecraft Amethyst Clusters and Buds grow on Budding Amethyst blocks. You can recognize them by the cross-shape on their sides. Note that you can’t mine Budding Amethyst, but you can come back to find newly-spawned Amethyst Buds. The other solid amethyst block is called a ‘Block of Amethyst’, and can only be mined with a pickaxe. This block is purely decorative, and cannot grow Amethyst Buds. You can use Amethyst Shards to create more Minecraft Blocks of Amethyst if you want to use them as a building material for a beautiful Minecraft house design.
What you can craft with Minecraft Amethyst Shards
Besides being a posh new building material, Amethyst Shards can be used to craft the following items:
- Spyglass: One Amethyst Shard placed on top of two Copper Ingots makes a Spyglass. Spyglasses can be used to zoom in to see far objects.
- Tinted Glass: One block of glass with an Amethyst Shard above, below and on either side will create two blocks of Tinted Glass. Tinted Glass is a building material which blocks all light (but you can still see through it). It can’t suffocate mobs, but it can be reused when broken.
- Calibrated Sculk Sensor: place two Amethyst Shards on each side of a Sculk Sensor and one at the top.
- Block of Amethyst: As mentioned before, this is purely decorative. You can craft a Block of Amethyst using four Amethyst Shards.
Amethyst Shards can also be used to duplicate Minecraft Allay mobs. You can use Allays to mine Amethyst Geodes faster, as these handy little sidekicks will pick up the drops.
If you're mining for Amethyst Shards and Geodes anyway, keep an eye out for Lush Caves to collect some Minecraft Glow Berries.
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