How to mine Amethyst in Minecraft

Amethyst is one of the new mining resources you can come across in Minecraft, thanks to the first Caves and Cliffs update. They are purple crystals that only grow inside Amethyst Geodes, so you have set yourself up with Amethyst Shards for the future when you come across one. Geodes are located in the middle of a combination of Basalt and Calcite blocks. While you may find various Amethyst growing inside one of these geodes, there are some things you need to keep in mind when you are about to mine them. So with that in mind, here is how you can mind Amethyst in Minecraft.

When you find an Amethyst Geode, do not go hitting everything with your pickaxe right away. Inside here, you will notice purple blocks that have cracks on them. These are called Budding Amethyst and are the blocks that the Amethyst will grow on. If you see Amethyst growing on one, take into consideration how big the crystals are.

There are four different versions of Amethyst: small, medium, large, and cluster. It is only in the cluster form that you can mine Amethyst and gain shards from it. The sizes are easy to tell apart, so once you have seen a cluster form before, you should be able to recognize when Amethyst is ready to be picked.

Mining Amethyst can be done using any tool or just your hand. It doesn’t matter what you use; if you strike the cluster form, it will drop shards for you. The only difference is if you use a pickaxe, it will break down faster and drop additional shards, so if you want the most out of the cluster, use a pickaxe. If you want to gather the cluster itself, you can mine it using a Silk Touch pickaxe and then place it anywhere you want for decoration.