All About Mining

Today I am going to teach you about mining. To start off, you should start to build a staircase downward until you get to level 5(you can see that on the f3 menu, level 5 is when y=5). The staircase should look something like this:

Now, find level 11. From there you should just dig a tunnel 1 block wide and 2 blocks tall. This tunnel can go on as far as you want. As you're making the tunnel, place torches every 4 blocks like this:

So that there are 3 blocks in between each torch. Once you stop the main tunnel, stop at each torch and mine out about 5 blocks in the 2 walls like this:

This is one of the most efficient and cheapest ways of mining. Since ores usually spawn in clusters that are wider than 2 blocks, you will see them on at least one side of the wall. Diamond ore only spawns in levels 16 and lower so level 11 is like in the middle since level 1-5 are bedrock. So level 10, 11, and 12 are probably the best layers to go mining at. There is also a high chance that you will find a cave, dungeon, abandoned mineshaft, a ravine, or maybe even the stronghold. If you find a cave, it is a good idea to explore it just be careful of the monsters that can sneak up on you.