Same! I used to frequent a cave tour somewhat close to my house at the time and had internalised limestone as a concept and completely forgotten everything else the tour guide had said about geology.
When I was a kid I assumed all stone was solid grey and broke easily because I played Minecraft. Imagine my shock a few years later when I learned that stone was many different things.
counterpoint: if water flows onto flowing lava, the lava turns into cobble stone, which can then be smelted into regular stone, which would imply that they're made of similar base materials. That would support igneous. Counter-counterpoint: oak trees drop apples.
I mean it's entirely possible that steve just makes Limestone from Quicklime offscreen because... Smelting raw iron gives iron ingots. Or stone can be a combination of limestone with igneous rock in form of some chimerastone
@@YounesLayachi also naming the pine trees and spruce was weird. I know they probably resemble spruce more, but I really get pine videos when I'm walking through snowy spruce.
What if its actually just creating a layer of lime stone on top of the lava from the water. I dont know what happens to the lava but it maybe just gets lost in the prosses or mixes in the minig prosses.
I love the worldbuilding focus of your channel. I think that, since Steve is our avatar in exploring the world of Minecraft, we can't perceive anything he can't. Therefore "Stone" could represent multiple different types of rock Steve isn't able to distinguish, implying that he isn't a geologist. This is also why "Terracotta" makes up the Badlands biomes: Steve is under the false impression that the Sun can bake clay into a sedimentary rock, essentially a naturally-occurring ceramic, even though WE know this is impossible. So Stone matches several different incompatible real-world rocks because Steve can't differentiate them. Steve's lack of science chops is wholly unsurprising because his ancestors and contemporaries clearly never made it to the industrial revolution. Rather, they developed magic. In the same way we're shocked by Steve's ignorance of geology, he would be equally appalled by our culture's clear lack of magical knowledge. "These primitives don't know how to enchant??? I learned potionmaking in middle school! Why haven't they made any golems?" Since magic takes the place of technology in Minecraft, Steve's journey progresses from the natural world to the supernatural world as he recapitulates the development of his ancestors' civilization. The liminal space between the natural and supernatural are in diamonds and obsidian: unlike purpur or netherite these are real materials, but unlike sandstone or mud they clearly have very different and even outright magical properties in Minecraft. Complaining that Minecraft obsidian is too durable would be missing the point, because real obsidian also doesn't facilitate interdimensional travel.
@@agsilverradio2225 fair point, but he might've adopted mining simply because he found himself at world spawn with no stuff and wanted resources. I don't think we know for sure that he was a miner *before* the game starts. He might be totally self-taught.
And as Minecraft adds in more and more types of stone, that's basically Steve learning more and more about geology. He recently discovered intrusive igneous stone exists in multiple types, after all, because Mojang added Andesite, Granite, and Diorite to the game.
I think it's evidence against it being limestone. If you heat limestone chunks, you get quicklime, not molten limestone you can cast into a smooth cube.
It goes against the limestone theory and supports the igneous theory. Limestone will decompose around 700 degrees. It becomes ash and CO2. Carbonatite would melt around 500 and stick back together maybe. It could also smooth out the stone so you get smooth stone. Maybe. I would have to look at the temperatures closer. Carbonatite might just decompose at those temps too since it’s on the surface and exposed to oxygen.
I think dripstone has to represent limestone, since we see it forming the cave formations we'd expect to be formed from limestone, and it has the appearance of limestone. I don't think it's impossible to have two types of limestone in the game, but I'm still in favor of the flood basalt theory. There are other types of basalt in the game, but there are some different types of basalt in real-life too, taking on different shapes and whatnot based on chemistry, speed of cooling, types of weathering, etc. One peculiarity you mentioned about the Minecraft world is the distribution of copper. There's actually lots of it, and it's clearly native copper, and somehow there's much more in a specific sedimentary formation (dripstone caves). On Earth, there is one location that actually fits this pretty well - the Keweenaw native copper deposits in northern Michigan. There are layers of flood basalts, separated by sedimentary layers that formed between eruptive episodes. Both are filled with native copper, and the richer deposits are in the sedimentary layers because they're more porous. It's the only place on the planet with so much native copper, so it seems like a strong fit. Granted, the sedimentary layers in the Keweenaw are conglomerate, and don't bear any resemblance to dripstone caves, but the conglomerate does look an awful lot like Minecraft's cobblestone.
Counter point: You can get copper (and iron for that matter) mineralisation in limestone via skarn formation. These are caused by intrusion of mostly silica oversaturated melts in or near limestone with the escaping fluids replacing the calcite. And we have this relationship roughly in Minecraft as well (well kinda obviously if this "stone" is your default lithology where all other rock types spawn in but still).
Hello! You're the only Minecraft player I've ever seen who uses text displays so well. I can't find a single good tutorial or guide on how to use them anywhere. It would be so helpful if you made a video about how to use them like you do! :)
Thanks, I have been asked a few times and its not very strait forward sometimes. I can make a video on it, but it will be after I get back from my work in Australia.
the only problem I see with this theory is that if water evaporates in the nether it does not turn into a stone block. Now granted, it could be that the water evaporates quickly enough that all the particulates are carried away with the steam
@@ender7278 True, though you can make an infinite water source from only one water source block, given time (fill cauldron using water bottles filled from source block, make 2x2 infinite water source). But you don't get time in the nether.
I just watched Action Button's review on Tokimeki Memorial, so seeing a Castlevania reference right at the start of the video absolutely shook me to the core
I'm on team igneous due to the world having a stagnant lid and lava being so close to the surface. I have a much more in depth comment on the previous video that got a fair amount of likes, so refer to there for said details. TLDR: Minecraft terrain generation doesn't produce ocean trenches or mountain ranges. Sure, it has ravines and mountains, but these are way too small to be true mountain ranges or ocean trenches, and the shape of the continents and oceans themselves would not make sense for a planet with tectonic plates. This means it doesn't have plate tectonics, giving the planet a different kind of crust known as a stagnant lid. On stagnant lid planets, the mantle heats up until it literally melts the crust in a catastrophic global resurfacing event. Lava exists not that far down from the surface in minecraft by geographic scales, suggesting that the crust is already in the process of melting.
Of course, once you go below the bedrock layer, there's nothing but the Void (and potentially the Nether much further down?), so there's no mantle present to heat up and melt the Minecraft crust. That said, perhaps there's more to the Void than we realize, or it could just be an artifact of Minecraft's limited world generation.
On "hard vs brittle" Minecraft does have two separate toughness stats for blocks, hardness (how long it takes to break) and blast resistance (how hard it is to destroy with explosions) off the top of my head I cant think of anything with high hardness but low boast resistance or vice versa but it could factor in as a minor evidence piece
@@elliotgandersenI will spread ur cheeks 🍑 lil bro 😭🙏🏾🙏🏾 I betta not catch you in my comments again or it’s finna gon be OVER for you 👾 😭😭🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️ betta pray you aint catchin me on these streets dawg 🙏🙏💯💯💯 you finna regret it talkin crazyy stuff like dat
i think stone/cobble could be a mix of water minerals and igneous minerals since is a mix of both liquids after all, what remains a mystery is why stone generates when lava touches water from above and cobble from the side, when you break stone you also get cobble so that means when liquids collide a certain way the stone generates already broken and polished? i mean in that case i would expect another texture more akin to the andesite block or something
Maybe it has something to do with HOW lava and water mix, if lava mixes with water differently (e.g. from the sides,living the top of the water open) it might affect the texture and structure of rocks that are being formed in that process.
The way that cobble/stone formation works isn't based on the side, but if the flowing lava would intersect a water source or flowing water. It could be that with the cobble case there are just more macro scale fractures, possibly due to the growth not being as even.
these videos are such high quality, and the command block diagrams you set up are always so helpful in explaining these concepts. i've never had much of an interest in geology but these videos have been really educational and entertaining!
i would just love for you to do a series with 1 singular mod called Terrafirmacraft......it aims to make survival more realistic down to even these basic ideas of rocks and minerals
Admittedly while it’s interesting to examine TFC’s world gen and the fact it has so many different rock types, they don’t really do much or differ or even affect terrain generation afaik. Exceptions are that some can be used as flux and igneous rocks make a tier 0 anvil, but that’s about it.
@@Mercure250 Oh right I forgot about that.That's true as well, though for the most part the minerals you need the most spawn in pretty much everything, especially considering there are always three layers of rock in TFC
In a previous episode you were wondering how dirt and clay and tuff got under the surface in self contained clumps. I was digging in the deep dark and found a clay patch and had a realization: What if it was washed down in a cave or sinkhole, and then the cave collapsed behind it making it appear to have been enclosed there from the beginning?
You should go into what is quartz? Or in depth of granite and all other rocks. Strange how you can craft Diorite with quartz- what's its properties? and what is Nether brick related or end stone? So many possibilities and maybe some actual real-life connections too?!
I’m very pleased with the -sediment- sentiment that Stone could be igneous OR an evaporite/sedimentary. As much as I love geology, And I love this mini series of yours, To say that “Stone is whatever you want it to be” just sounds so in-line with the rest of Minecraft. Even if dripstone is supposed to be limestone, And you can smelt cobblestone. :] P.S. ...Any tips for hard water? Mine is STUPID hard and it’s SUPER annoying. Thick white film on my pots any time I try to boil something ;
Would love a follow-up covering obsidian in more depth, great video as always! also what's the deal with crying obsidian? is there some kind of real-world equivalent (even if it's not obsidian)?
I know there can sometimes be other impurities in obsidian that would add textures, like snowflake obsidian. I would doubt any material would make it glow purple, but I'm super excited to hear about more obsidian relates things!
Currently playing a modpack with expanded geology. specific mod for that is project Rankiere(might have spelled it wrong) And vast majority of rocks underground are "dolostone" Which can be cooked into Quicklime. It doesn't replace minecraft "stone" In the code tho. Only in world generation Lava+water still gives you stone
Considering you can produce an infinite amount of water in Minecraft, perhaps the water turning into stone when lava touches it is using up all of that block of water's potential; Making a 1 cubic meter block of stone?
The best theory to me, and it can relate to every other theory, Steve is magical. He can stuff 1000kg of water into a bucket and carry 36 of them. He can use ground bones to grow plants at rapid speed, breed and raise animals by giving them food.
I picked up that you said something about these values being true with standard pressure, But minecraft world is 8 times larger than earth. Unfortunately, I am not some astrophysisist, but I can recall that larger planets have larger pressure, I wonder if that changes the interpretation.
Fantastic! I live in Denmark, in one of the areas with reasonably hard water. 17-21° dH (or about 119mg/L if considered purely magnesium-oxide precipitate to 210mg/L if considered purely calciumoxide precipitate). I had a single geology course at uni as well as a lot of courses on ground water, so I’m loving this content. Also for your colour theory world. I would love for you to look into the cielab colour space or some others that are made to be visually uniform. It’s a bit more of a wild math beast so be prepared for a bit of headache (and that cielab has some glaring flaws in terms of visual uniformity) but it’s better than rgb etc. and interestingly has two/four primary colours as opposed to the three we are used to in rbg: cyan, magenta, yellow and blue Uh… lol on the cherry trees. Beautiful command block skills as always.
Where are you going to in Australia? The history of the formation of our Flinders Ranges here is rich in flavour. The whole area used to be underwater.
yeah, comparing to your last video I can think of 4 more pieces of evidence: 1. Stone is by far the most common surface rock in the entire world. 2. Stone is equally common in all biomes. 3. Stone builds on top of itself for at least 60 meters, which may be symbolic for multiple kilometers. 4. On mountains, some exposed Stone seems to turn into Gravel, possibly containing some pieces similar to Flint.
UA-cam really wants me to rewatch this video, and now I just have "What is Stone, Baby don't hurt me no more" stuck in my head. (luckily on the musical part right now)
So I remember in one of your videos you mentioned ores/ore generation and said something along the lines of "that's its own can of worms, maybe in another video." I'd be interested to see such a video!
I like to think that the Minecraft world is partially artificial, so it was built some way and then developed over time. The stone would be some mix of limestone and concrete-like bits heated and fused together. Or maybe the whole world was grown from a giant coral. Id also like to point out that water replicates itself infinitely in Minecraft, so maybe the water is duplicated along with the minerals in it, is instantly evaporated and leaves behind mineral dust, then does that again and again 1000 times in a tick, until the block is full of stone Edit: hey, you covered this!
i had an extra layer of stone in my shower because of hard water. It wasnt a big layer,just enough to be visible and it felt very uneven... Like a natural stone floor. Stones are amazing
can you like release a link to download ur world, i really want to explore this for myself. i’m not sure how one goes to download another’s world but it would be so cool!!!
Where I live there is a fairly famous limestone quarry and the limestone we get from there is quite similar to stone from minecraft in appearance. A nice blueish grey color.
I know it would step a bit further from real geology, but I would love to see what you think about the landscapes of the nether. Like, what would cause basalt deltas to form in the specific way they do? What is blackstone? And while trying to find out what netherrack is made of is probably hopeless, there might be some other conclusions we can come to based on the shape of the structures it forms, and how we find deposits of gold and quartz in it.
It would be fun to think about. Do some wild speculation videos. I have been thinking about the lore of Minecraft for a while. Might be cool to make a video on it.
Personally my hypothesis is that netherrack is made of some awful meaty moss thing, especially since its texture used to be a lot meatier And Endstone's texture resembles dead coral a lot which has fascinating implications about the former ecology of the End @@gneissname
I think limestone makes more sense. -The meterial probly comes from the bones, scales, and shells of the same fish that we catch with a fishing rod. (which spawn via unknown means that I suspect are tied to the game's magic system of souls and exp.) - Also, you can combine it with different ratios of stone and quartz to make diorite, andisite, and grannite.
I don't know how it would effect it, but gravity is not the same on Earth as it is in minecraft. The minecraft world has significantly more surface area, and the acceleration is nearly double Earth's.
I really wish the Minecraft devs would introduce shale, limestone, marble and proper basalt into the game and separate the three geological types of rock. It would make mining so much more interesting if you had to prospect. They could simply rename stone to whatever makes sense. The texture of stone looks igneous to me, whilst being the most common rock, but with the colour of sedimentary shale. I think stone was meant to be a place holder that mimics both as a fictional combination. Carbonitite and limestone don’t seem to match either colour or texture.
Stone metamorphosing into slate strongly implies that it's shale, but it forms caves (limestone) and is also clearly igneous. The only rational conclusion is that, as you say, it's a placeholder. IMO Steve can't tell the difference between shale, limestones if they're not clearly a high-purity calcite, and certain extrusive igneous rocks. So he just calls them all "Stone." If Steve couldn't differentiate these rocks, it would actually be unrealistic for them to show up as different rocks in-game because that would give Steve the ability to treat two types of rock differently even though he has no idea that they're different. Imagine putting 54 stacks of shale into one double chest and 54 stacks of limestone into a second double chest, but doing so specifically when you have no idea that they're two different kinds of rock. So it's pretty clear that these discrepancies are due to Steve's lack of knowledge.
now, i remember you said you are not going look at anything nether or end, but if stone was a kind of stone generated by evaporation, where does the stone in the water go when you place the bucket of water in the nether?
There is no infinite source, as the water block evaporates. Main thing with evaporation - infinite volumes of water are leaving some portion of the limestone. So, in the nether you would just get some lime scales.
@@darkthunderer382 i have a problem with that infinite source bit anyway. you could catch rainwater in a cauldron, pick it up with a bucket, and place that single source of water under some lava and get stone.
4:12. maybe you could quantify the salinity of water by looking at what mobs spawn in each biome, since different animals have a different tolerance for salt, altho I doubt that mojang had that in consideration when adding the mobs (you could also maybe measure the acidity by looking for bone materials)
Some additional fun pieces of evidence you could consider: 1. We could take the cubic shape at face value and assume the rock in question has cubic (or near cubic) cleavage/jointing (this could indicate something like halite or a limestone) 2. The texture of stone has some light linear features visible. I agree that these seem representative of layering, but the fact that the top and bottom of stone also have this visible may complicate matters slightly. (I am reminded of the linear texture of schist, but that would seem very unintuitive as schist is a higher metamorphic grade than slate) 3. Another piece of evidence to consider here is that stone contains fossils of large vertebrate animals. 4. The fact that clasts of slate are present in stone *could* be taken as evidence of violent, sudden, erosion (rip up clasts) of an existing body of slate rather than gradual metamorphism of stone into slate with depth. Truthfully the more evidence is considered the more confusing it becomes… (something something higher priority on earth science education in schools)
My brother threw me the first stone theory video last week, and now this one! I love geology and love the theories & the way you present and walk through them! Definitely going to go check out more of your videos
Everything you've shown us considered, I think the stone block in Minecraft represents a lot of different minerals. I'm leaning towards this evaporite explanation at least where it concerns stone near the surface, since it helps explain how trail ruins can be buried under meters and meters of stone. Like you said, a lot of things in this game work on a much shorter time scale than real life, so it's not unthinkable that on Minecraft's time scale it would only take hundreds or thousands of years for buildings to get completely buried in stone.
im a conservationalist in training, the earth is literally everything we have. It makes me sad how people either dont know about or only interact with the world through profit motivated ways. All i want is a world that we support and can support us, and thats what I want to dedicate my life to. We need more people doing this work and your getting people into it
The block we're talking about is one of the oldest in the game, and the game makers were Swedish. Perhaps we should put ourselves in the minds of a Swede and ask what do Swedish people think when they think stone?
I feel like due to its shear abundance, limestone seems more likely. I mean we have sunken ruins, and deserts, which suggest sea level changes. And we have tall mountain ranges which suggests tectonics. So, its possible for it to have been found in all the locations it is. Plus the Carbonatite in real life is so unbaleivebly rare, its hard to imagin it being able to form in such abundance its commonaly referd to as "stone".
in the bedrock edition version the coral generation is much better and sometimes in big chunks of coral you can find at the bottom stone, coble stone,andisit, diorite and granite.
out of all the commonly occuring types of rocks, as someone who doesn't know anything about them, I think limestone could also be the most likely type of rock to break off out of a rock wall with just stone tools or even your hands if you give it some time
Loving these videos. I really like your use of animation-presentations inside minecraft, it really adds to the video much more than a regular graph or illustration would. If you wanna try something similar to minecraft I recommend Vintage Story - it's a lot more survival focused, but, more relevant to the channel, has more pretty serious worldgen simulating geological processes etc. with all the various stone types and such. It's (at least to someone who's a bit of layman in geology) really impressive.
My interpretation of the stone and cobblestone generation is that it's the lava being cooled to create the block. I think with stone in particular, we just don't see the process of the lava actually taking its place in the next block just because of the how the game works.
If you haven't already, make videos about what endstone and netherrack are. Obviously they don't actually exist irl, but you could investigate what they might be made of, or be similar too based on their colour and properties, such as the fact that netherrack burns indefinitely.
limestone just makes more sense, given how common and relatively fragile Stone is, compared to an incredibly rare form of volcanic rock. It just makes more sense that the land was made from oceanic sedimentary rock than that the entire world was covered by this one type of volcano. Plus, there are many places in the world that you can actually dig down 1-3 meters and find a layer of limestone.
Does this make sense when water forms both stone and cobble? If stone forms like obsidian does, where lava comes down on water, then would it make sense for it to be the result of slower cooling of that lava or faster evaporation of the water?
For me this theory is more possible also what proves it is fact that if we assume that the content of calcite in STONE isn't constant and the stone in some cases could not be limestone but marl it would be possible that stone in Minecraft could metamorphose to DEEPSLATE (when the contetn of stone is more similar to marl) and also to create caves (when the stone has more calcite (CaCO3) in it.
If the water has some amount of suspended minerals, and the lava also cools into igneous rock, would the end result ever be, like, a mix of both? Like, for one, is it possible to have a rock that's maybe *part* igneous and *part* something else, and for two are there any natural processes that would make that happen (as opposed to just giving you two different, very distinct rocks)?
i dont remember if you included this in the first video- but does the presence of fossils in the minecraft world work against the igneous theory and towards this theory?
I would say normally it supports a sedimentary rock theory but carbonatie is cool enough that it wouldn't necessarily burn up bone. I'll have to think about this. Maybe i'll talk about it in the fossil episode.
Stone should be sedimentary rock for caves to form and also because it contains coal and iron which are also sedimentaries. However it can be generated from lava and generates near exposed lava lakes. At this point I would just assume that it can be both, igneous or sedimentary, game mechanics just don't distinguish them and they have the same texture.
My theory is that the water isn't water as we know it, but an organism of some sort. It expels objects regardless of their real-world density, at the same rate, unless it is affected by magma blocks or soul sand. It uproots saplings but is held back by lichen. It can grow to fill new places without lowering its level elsewhere - in fact, a full block of water which suddenly has one of its sides exposed stays put, and the extra water created by it never finds a level. Its properties have also changed since records began, which is not true of the physical properties of matter. Once upon a time, it ejected boats with great force, and now it makes them sink. It also used to have the property of being able to affect objects not in its space in e.g., water ladders, but no longer does this. This could be the result of evolution, if it is an organism. Or, it could be a magical entity, which would help explain the water ladder phenomenon better (as well as the unusual interactions with a column of bubbles dragging people *downwards* when directly over a magma block, as well as pushing them up when over the presumably magical soul sand) and perhaps the ways in which magic interacts with the world have changed due to some unknowable cataclysmic events. That doesn't help explain what stone is, of course. But it's a thought nonetheless.
When I was a kid I assumed the stone was limestone because it was the only rock I knew so its funny to see a geologist back up my theory years later
Same!
I used to frequent a cave tour somewhat close to my house at the time and had internalised limestone as a concept and completely forgotten everything else the tour guide had said about geology.
When I was a kid I assumed all stone was solid grey and broke easily because I played Minecraft. Imagine my shock a few years later when I learned that stone was many different things.
counterpoint: if water flows onto flowing lava, the lava turns into cobble stone, which can then be smelted into regular stone, which would imply that they're made of similar base materials.
That would support igneous.
Counter-counterpoint: oak trees drop apples.
I mean it's entirely possible that steve just makes Limestone from Quicklime offscreen because... Smelting raw iron gives iron ingots. Or stone can be a combination of limestone with igneous rock in form of some chimerastone
Renaming generic wood to oak was a big mistake in Minecraft
Counter counter counter point: trees in general drop saplings.
@@YounesLayachi also naming the pine trees and spruce was weird. I know they probably resemble spruce more, but I really get pine videos when I'm walking through snowy spruce.
What if its actually just creating a layer of lime stone on top of the lava from the water. I dont know what happens to the lava but it maybe just gets lost in the prosses or mixes in the minig prosses.
I love the worldbuilding focus of your channel.
I think that, since Steve is our avatar in exploring the world of Minecraft, we can't perceive anything he can't. Therefore "Stone" could represent multiple different types of rock Steve isn't able to distinguish, implying that he isn't a geologist. This is also why "Terracotta" makes up the Badlands biomes: Steve is under the false impression that the Sun can bake clay into a sedimentary rock, essentially a naturally-occurring ceramic, even though WE know this is impossible. So Stone matches several different incompatible real-world rocks because Steve can't differentiate them.
Steve's lack of science chops is wholly unsurprising because his ancestors and contemporaries clearly never made it to the industrial revolution. Rather, they developed magic. In the same way we're shocked by Steve's ignorance of geology, he would be equally appalled by our culture's clear lack of magical knowledge. "These primitives don't know how to enchant??? I learned potionmaking in middle school! Why haven't they made any golems?"
Since magic takes the place of technology in Minecraft, Steve's journey progresses from the natural world to the supernatural world as he recapitulates the development of his ancestors' civilization. The liminal space between the natural and supernatural are in diamonds and obsidian: unlike purpur or netherite these are real materials, but unlike sandstone or mud they clearly have very different and even outright magical properties in Minecraft. Complaining that Minecraft obsidian is too durable would be missing the point, because real obsidian also doesn't facilitate interdimensional travel.
Yeah, but Steve is a miner, and your telling me he dosn't know his rocks?
@@agsilverradio2225 fair point, but he might've adopted mining simply because he found himself at world spawn with no stuff and wanted resources. I don't think we know for sure that he was a miner *before* the game starts. He might be totally self-taught.
And as Minecraft adds in more and more types of stone, that's basically Steve learning more and more about geology. He recently discovered intrusive igneous stone exists in multiple types, after all, because Mojang added Andesite, Granite, and Diorite to the game.
@@kennyholmes5196ohhh I like that idea
@@kennyholmes5196 Sadly, Steve forgot how to stack those stones in his inventory now that he realised they are different.
I chuckled at the aesthetic grappling you did with that tree.
I was unprepared for the exact same tree but mirrored to show up.
Okay, so... does the fact that you can cook cobblestone back into normal stone affect these resuilts in anyway?
I am going to cook you into normal stone
I think it's evidence against it being limestone. If you heat limestone chunks, you get quicklime, not molten limestone you can cast into a smooth cube.
Don’t forget that cobble can be crafted into some of the decorative rocks if you add quartz!
It goes against the limestone theory and supports the igneous theory. Limestone will decompose around 700 degrees. It becomes ash and CO2. Carbonatite would melt around 500 and stick back together maybe. It could also smooth out the stone so you get smooth stone. Maybe. I would have to look at the temperatures closer. Carbonatite might just decompose at those temps too since it’s on the surface and exposed to oxygen.
@@gneissname Well since you can smelt iron ore in a furnace and that needs 1250 °C in real life, then that would be not enough at least
I came for Minecraft geology, stayed for Minecraft color theory, and continue to be entertained by Minecraft geology! Love the work you do
I think dripstone has to represent limestone, since we see it forming the cave formations we'd expect to be formed from limestone, and it has the appearance of limestone. I don't think it's impossible to have two types of limestone in the game, but I'm still in favor of the flood basalt theory. There are other types of basalt in the game, but there are some different types of basalt in real-life too, taking on different shapes and whatnot based on chemistry, speed of cooling, types of weathering, etc.
One peculiarity you mentioned about the Minecraft world is the distribution of copper. There's actually lots of it, and it's clearly native copper, and somehow there's much more in a specific sedimentary formation (dripstone caves). On Earth, there is one location that actually fits this pretty well - the Keweenaw native copper deposits in northern Michigan. There are layers of flood basalts, separated by sedimentary layers that formed between eruptive episodes. Both are filled with native copper, and the richer deposits are in the sedimentary layers because they're more porous. It's the only place on the planet with so much native copper, so it seems like a strong fit.
Granted, the sedimentary layers in the Keweenaw are conglomerate, and don't bear any resemblance to dripstone caves, but the conglomerate does look an awful lot like Minecraft's cobblestone.
I have a piece of copper from there on my desk. I will probably talk about Keweenaw in the ore episode.
Counter point: You can get copper (and iron for that matter) mineralisation in limestone via skarn formation. These are caused by intrusion of mostly silica oversaturated melts in or near limestone with the escaping fluids replacing the calcite.
And we have this relationship roughly in Minecraft as well (well kinda obviously if this "stone" is your default lithology where all other rock types spawn in but still).
Hello! You're the only Minecraft player I've ever seen who uses text displays so well. I can't find a single good tutorial or guide on how to use them anywhere. It would be so helpful if you made a video about how to use them like you do! :)
Thanks, I have been asked a few times and its not very strait forward sometimes. I can make a video on it, but it will be after I get back from my work in Australia.
the only problem I see with this theory is that if water evaporates in the nether it does not turn into a stone block. Now granted, it could be that the water evaporates quickly enough that all the particulates are carried away with the steam
When you put water in the Nether, you're putting at most 1 bucket at a time, and 1 bucket is only a cubic meter of water.
@@rytan4516 But you only need that same amount for stone in the Overworld.
@@ender7278 True, though you can make an infinite water source from only one water source block, given time (fill cauldron using water bottles filled from source block, make 2x2 infinite water source). But you don't get time in the nether.
The water also evaporates into dark smoke, so there's clearly something magical going on there.
@@hyper_lynx or maybe it's just the rapidly condensed particulate that was previously dissolved in the water
I just watched Action Button's review on Tokimeki Memorial, so seeing a Castlevania reference right at the start of the video absolutely shook me to the core
Hello, and welcome back to video games!
I'm on team igneous due to the world having a stagnant lid and lava being so close to the surface.
I have a much more in depth comment on the previous video that got a fair amount of likes, so refer to there for said details.
TLDR:
Minecraft terrain generation doesn't produce ocean trenches or mountain ranges. Sure, it has ravines and mountains, but these are way too small to be true mountain ranges or ocean trenches, and the shape of the continents and oceans themselves would not make sense for a planet with tectonic plates.
This means it doesn't have plate tectonics, giving the planet a different kind of crust known as a stagnant lid.
On stagnant lid planets, the mantle heats up until it literally melts the crust in a catastrophic global resurfacing event.
Lava exists not that far down from the surface in minecraft by geographic scales, suggesting that the crust is already in the process of melting.
Of course, once you go below the bedrock layer, there's nothing but the Void (and potentially the Nether much further down?), so there's no mantle present to heat up and melt the Minecraft crust. That said, perhaps there's more to the Void than we realize, or it could just be an artifact of Minecraft's limited world generation.
In bedrock edition coral generates with large piles of dead coral beneath it. Possibly related?
Bedrock Edition reefs can generate large stone boulders covered with coral growths, so it could be
On "hard vs brittle" Minecraft does have two separate toughness stats for blocks, hardness (how long it takes to break) and blast resistance (how hard it is to destroy with explosions) off the top of my head I cant think of anything with high hardness but low boast resistance or vice versa but it could factor in as a minor evidence piece
Yeah good point.
Yayy more geology :D
That was unintentional and ironically my exact thought, especially when I saw this comment.
@@elliotgandersenI will spread ur cheeks 🍑 lil bro 😭🙏🏾🙏🏾 I betta not catch you in my comments again or it’s finna gon be OVER for you 👾 😭😭🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️ betta pray you aint catchin me on these streets dawg 🙏🙏💯💯💯 you finna regret it talkin crazyy stuff like dat
i think stone/cobble could be a mix of water minerals and igneous minerals since is a mix of both liquids after all, what remains a mystery is why stone generates when lava touches water from above and cobble from the side, when you break stone you also get cobble so that means when liquids collide a certain way the stone generates already broken and polished? i mean in that case i would expect another texture more akin to the andesite block or something
Maybe it has something to do with HOW lava and water mix, if lava mixes with water differently (e.g. from the sides,living the top of the water open) it might affect the texture and structure of rocks that are being formed in that process.
The way that cobble/stone formation works isn't based on the side, but if the flowing lava would intersect a water source or flowing water. It could be that with the cobble case there are just more macro scale fractures, possibly due to the growth not being as even.
Actually, it's based on if the water is a sourceblock or a flowing block; not what side the lava hits it at.
I love these theory/class videos! It's really cool to know how things work, and to speculate how much the game is similar to real life.
this
Same feels here
these videos are such high quality, and the command block diagrams you set up are always so helpful in explaining these concepts. i've never had much of an interest in geology but these videos have been really educational and entertaining!
Thanks, its always fun trying to come up with ways to demonstrate the ideas.
i would just love for you to do a series with 1 singular mod called Terrafirmacraft......it aims to make survival more realistic down to even these basic ideas of rocks and minerals
This would be peak content. 100% on board with this.
Perhaps an analysis of its worldgen, maybe. I think a survival TFC playthrough would be a monumental commitment for any big progression.
Admittedly while it’s interesting to examine TFC’s world gen and the fact it has so many different rock types, they don’t really do much or differ or even affect terrain generation afaik. Exceptions are that some can be used as flux and igneous rocks make a tier 0 anvil, but that’s about it.
@@meemdic8682 Actually, ores and minerals also spawn in specific rocks.
@@Mercure250 Oh right I forgot about that.That's true as well, though for the most part the minerals you need the most spawn in pretty much everything, especially considering there are always three layers of rock in TFC
In a previous episode you were wondering how dirt and clay and tuff got under the surface in self contained clumps. I was digging in the deep dark and found a clay patch and had a realization: What if it was washed down in a cave or sinkhole, and then the cave collapsed behind it making it appear to have been enclosed there from the beginning?
It honestly amazes me with how much time and effort you put into setting these demonstrations up. Such an underrated youtuber!
I think the carbonatite interpretation is cooler, but limestone just makes so much more sense.
You should go into what is quartz? Or in depth of granite and all other rocks. Strange how you can craft Diorite with quartz- what's its properties? and what is Nether brick related or end stone? So many possibilities and maybe some actual real-life connections too?!
You can craft diotite with quartz because it actually does have quartz crystals in it !!!! :)
@@bujustic I kinda forgot that quartz was a real thing, 😅 been in the nether too long can't tell what's what from zombified pigmen to mushroom trees.
I could not wait until the followup of the previous video on this subject, good shit man
I’m very pleased with the -sediment- sentiment that Stone could be igneous OR an evaporite/sedimentary. As much as I love geology, And I love this mini series of yours, To say that “Stone is whatever you want it to be” just sounds so in-line with the rest of Minecraft.
Even if dripstone is supposed to be limestone, And you can smelt cobblestone. :]
P.S. ...Any tips for hard water? Mine is STUPID hard and it’s SUPER annoying. Thick white film on my pots any time I try to boil something ;
We have a water softener for the house but you can also get smaller ones that can go under a sink or something.
Mmm, so a cobblestone cobbler would taste of lime.
Makes sense to me.
Would love a follow-up covering obsidian in more depth, great video as always!
also what's the deal with crying obsidian? is there some kind of real-world equivalent (even if it's not obsidian)?
I'd also love to know about a real world crying obsidian!
I know there can sometimes be other impurities in obsidian that would add textures, like snowflake obsidian. I would doubt any material would make it glow purple, but I'm super excited to hear about more obsidian relates things!
i think its probably manmade,- it only generates in structures, not in the world itself
Considering that the water in minecraft can be drunk without dehydration killing you, I would say the entire world is filled with fresh water.
That means every fish is a freshwater fish, interesting
On one drinks in Minecraft!
Currently playing a modpack with expanded geology. specific mod for that is project Rankiere(might have spelled it wrong)
And vast majority of rocks underground are "dolostone"
Which can be cooked into Quicklime.
It doesn't replace minecraft "stone" In the code tho. Only in world generation
Lava+water still gives you stone
Third option: Carbonotite-Limestone mix
Considering you can produce an infinite amount of water in Minecraft, perhaps the water turning into stone when lava touches it is using up all of that block of water's potential; Making a 1 cubic meter block of stone?
Lava evaporating water into limestone at the same amount of time that it takes it to flow one meter must be the key to this whole mystery
The best theory to me, and it can relate to every other theory, Steve is magical. He can stuff 1000kg of water into a bucket and carry 36 of them. He can use ground bones to grow plants at rapid speed, breed and raise animals by giving them food.
I should do a long form video and the conclusion is Minecraft is a game made by programmers. 😀
Your videos really remind me of Sethbling back in the day. Just an incredible way to use Minecraft mechanics for top tier education. Great videos
7:57 “Most limestone is formed from the skeletons of the dead.” - Gneiss Name, 2023
the cool thing about water is that is IS infinite, so regardless of how little stone you get form water, it can always form a full 1x1x1 block
I picked up that you said something about these values being true with standard pressure,
But minecraft world is 8 times larger than earth. Unfortunately, I am not some astrophysisist, but I can recall that larger planets have larger pressure,
I wonder if that changes the interpretation.
One thing is water source blocks have an almost infinite amount of water so if a block of water evaporates anything could happen
Fantastic! I live in Denmark, in one of the areas with reasonably hard water. 17-21° dH (or about 119mg/L if considered purely magnesium-oxide precipitate to 210mg/L if considered purely calciumoxide precipitate). I had a single geology course at uni as well as a lot of courses on ground water, so I’m loving this content.
Also for your colour theory world. I would love for you to look into the cielab colour space or some others that are made to be visually uniform. It’s a bit more of a wild math beast so be prepared for a bit of headache (and that cielab has some glaring flaws in terms of visual uniformity) but it’s better than rgb etc. and interestingly has two/four primary colours as opposed to the three we are used to in rbg: cyan, magenta, yellow and blue
Uh… lol on the cherry trees. Beautiful command block skills as always.
I just did some digging again to find the newest. Cam16-ucs is what you should look into
Where are you going to in Australia? The history of the formation of our Flinders Ranges here is rich in flavour. The whole area used to be underwater.
A few different locations in the Flinders actually.
8:03 coral, turtles, and lots of stuff in the oceans are relatively new, having been added in the 1.13 update in 2018
Geology is so fascinating it's a damn shame I had a teacher who had absolutely no interest in teaching the subject
Sadly that is kind of the state of geology everywhere. Not understood and poorly taught. I’m actually planning a video about it
yeah, comparing to your last video I can think of 4 more pieces of evidence:
1. Stone is by far the most common surface rock in the entire world.
2. Stone is equally common in all biomes.
3. Stone builds on top of itself for at least 60 meters, which may be symbolic for multiple kilometers.
4. On mountains, some exposed Stone seems to turn into Gravel, possibly containing some pieces similar to Flint.
oh yeah and 5. you can turn it into decent tools
UA-cam really wants me to rewatch this video, and now I just have "What is Stone, Baby don't hurt me no more" stuck in my head. (luckily on the musical part right now)
So I remember in one of your videos you mentioned ores/ore generation and said something along the lines of "that's its own can of worms, maybe in another video." I'd be interested to see such a video!
I think it will be a topic that I start working on once I get back from my work in Australia.
I like to think that the Minecraft world is partially artificial, so it was built some way and then developed over time. The stone would be some mix of limestone and concrete-like bits heated and fused together. Or maybe the whole world was grown from a giant coral.
Id also like to point out that water replicates itself infinitely in Minecraft, so maybe the water is duplicated along with the minerals in it, is instantly evaporated and leaves behind mineral dust, then does that again and again 1000 times in a tick, until the block is full of stone
Edit: hey, you covered this!
It could be cool to think of the world as actually going through updates. Like it is evolving over time.
that opening scene killed me. well done dude XD.
i had an extra layer of stone in my shower because of hard water. It wasnt a big layer,just enough to be visible and it felt very uneven... Like a natural stone floor.
Stones are amazing
can you like release a link to download ur world, i really want to explore this for myself. i’m not sure how one goes to download another’s world but it would be so cool!!!
you should do a collab with @daskalos ! the epic archaeology geology collab!:DD
Where I live there is a fairly famous limestone quarry and the limestone we get from there is quite similar to stone from minecraft in appearance. A nice blueish grey color.
I know it would step a bit further from real geology, but I would love to see what you think about the landscapes of the nether. Like, what would cause basalt deltas to form in the specific way they do? What is blackstone? And while trying to find out what netherrack is made of is probably hopeless, there might be some other conclusions we can come to based on the shape of the structures it forms, and how we find deposits of gold and quartz in it.
It would be fun to think about. Do some wild speculation videos. I have been thinking about the lore of Minecraft for a while. Might be cool to make a video on it.
Personally my hypothesis is that netherrack is made of some awful meaty moss thing, especially since its texture used to be a lot meatier
And Endstone's texture resembles dead coral a lot which has fascinating implications about the former ecology of the End
@@gneissname
Tbh, Mojang should really add Limestone to the game
Hard amorphous solid sure is a mouthful
just call it a "hard as"
What about stone's quartz content vs named rocks like granite, diorite, and andesite (via their crafting recipes)
In minecraft bedrock, dead corals can spawn and sometimes they are in big blobs with other minerals in between, for you to know.
I think limestone makes more sense.
-The meterial probly comes from the bones, scales, and shells of the same fish that we catch with a fishing rod. (which spawn via unknown means that I suspect are tied to the game's magic system of souls and exp.)
- Also, you can combine it with different ratios of stone and quartz to make diorite, andisite, and grannite.
Man is really going down a rabbit hole about stone.
Nice name! Love the immense quality in these videos too lol! Keep it up!
Did you consider the crafting recipes cobble + quartz -> diorite and cobble + quartz -> granite?
I don't know how it would effect it, but gravity is not the same on Earth as it is in minecraft. The minecraft world has significantly more surface area, and the acceleration is nearly double Earth's.
I really wish the Minecraft devs would introduce shale, limestone, marble and proper basalt into the game and separate the three geological types of rock. It would make mining so much more interesting if you had to prospect. They could simply rename stone to whatever makes sense.
The texture of stone looks igneous to me, whilst being the most common rock, but with the colour of sedimentary shale. I think stone was meant to be a place holder that mimics both as a fictional combination.
Carbonitite and limestone don’t seem to match either colour or texture.
Stone metamorphosing into slate strongly implies that it's shale, but it forms caves (limestone) and is also clearly igneous. The only rational conclusion is that, as you say, it's a placeholder. IMO Steve can't tell the difference between shale, limestones if they're not clearly a high-purity calcite, and certain extrusive igneous rocks. So he just calls them all "Stone."
If Steve couldn't differentiate these rocks, it would actually be unrealistic for them to show up as different rocks in-game because that would give Steve the ability to treat two types of rock differently even though he has no idea that they're different. Imagine putting 54 stacks of shale into one double chest and 54 stacks of limestone into a second double chest, but doing so specifically when you have no idea that they're two different kinds of rock. So it's pretty clear that these discrepancies are due to Steve's lack of knowledge.
Calcite is marble.
now, i remember you said you are not going look at anything nether or end, but if stone was a kind of stone generated by evaporation, where does the stone in the water go when you place the bucket of water in the nether?
There is no infinite source, as the water block evaporates. Main thing with evaporation - infinite volumes of water are leaving some portion of the limestone. So, in the nether you would just get some lime scales.
Easy... it must be over 700 degrees so the carbonate combusts...
@@darkthunderer382 i have a problem with that infinite source bit anyway. you could catch rainwater in a cauldron, pick it up with a bucket, and place that single source of water under some lava and get stone.
4:12. maybe you could quantify the salinity of water by looking at what mobs spawn in each biome, since different animals have a different tolerance for salt, altho I doubt that mojang had that in consideration when adding the mobs (you could also maybe measure the acidity by looking for bone materials)
Some additional fun pieces of evidence you could consider:
1. We could take the cubic shape at face value and assume the rock in question has cubic (or near cubic) cleavage/jointing (this could indicate something like halite or a limestone)
2. The texture of stone has some light linear features visible. I agree that these seem representative of layering, but the fact that the top and bottom of stone also have this visible may complicate matters slightly. (I am reminded of the linear texture of schist, but that would seem very unintuitive as schist is a higher metamorphic grade than slate)
3. Another piece of evidence to consider here is that stone contains fossils of large vertebrate animals.
4. The fact that clasts of slate are present in stone *could* be taken as evidence of violent, sudden, erosion (rip up clasts) of an existing body of slate rather than gradual metamorphism of stone into slate with depth.
Truthfully the more evidence is considered the more confusing it becomes… (something something higher priority on earth science education in schools)
My brother threw me the first stone theory video last week, and now this one! I love geology and love the theories & the way you present and walk through them! Definitely going to go check out more of your videos
Everything you've shown us considered, I think the stone block in Minecraft represents a lot of different minerals. I'm leaning towards this evaporite explanation at least where it concerns stone near the surface, since it helps explain how trail ruins can be buried under meters and meters of stone. Like you said, a lot of things in this game work on a much shorter time scale than real life, so it's not unthinkable that on Minecraft's time scale it would only take hundreds or thousands of years for buildings to get completely buried in stone.
im a conservationalist in training, the earth is literally everything we have. It makes me sad how people either dont know about or only interact with the world through profit motivated ways. All i want is a world that we support and can support us, and thats what I want to dedicate my life to. We need more people doing this work and your getting people into it
Love seeing this study applied to Minecraft, seems like it would be a great fit, surprised it hadn't really been done before
The block we're talking about is one of the oldest in the game, and the game makers were Swedish. Perhaps we should put ourselves in the minds of a Swede and ask what do Swedish people think when they think stone?
yea in baghdad we do have “hard water” in arabic we call it killils
I want to see you play just a vanilla playthrough. Your voice is so soothing i would definitely watch
I always think as "stone" as a generic product, i.e. a conglomerate of different types (similar to gravel and sand).
I feel like if mojang DOES add limestone, it should generate under/near underground structures, like mineshafts, strongholds, etc.
I FUCKING LOVE ROCKS AND OTHER GEOLOGICAL WONDERS
Your content is lovely, informative and calming. Thank you very much
I feel like due to its shear abundance, limestone seems more likely. I mean we have sunken ruins, and deserts, which suggest sea level changes. And we have tall mountain ranges which suggests tectonics. So, its possible for it to have been found in all the locations it is. Plus the Carbonatite in real life is so unbaleivebly rare, its hard to imagin it being able to form in such abundance its commonaly referd to as "stone".
in the bedrock edition version the coral generation is much better and sometimes in big chunks of coral you can find at the bottom stone, coble stone,andisit, diorite and granite.
out of all the commonly occuring types of rocks, as someone who doesn't know anything about them, I think limestone could also be the most likely type of rock to break off out of a rock wall with just stone tools or even your hands if you give it some time
All that effort for a 5 second intro...
Hats off to you
I need someone to edit the first scene to be like that one meme where Dracula drops his glass and curses real loud
Loving these videos. I really like your use of animation-presentations inside minecraft, it really adds to the video much more than a regular graph or illustration would.
If you wanna try something similar to minecraft I recommend Vintage Story - it's a lot more survival focused, but, more relevant to the channel, has more pretty serious worldgen simulating geological processes etc. with all the various stone types and such. It's (at least to someone who's a bit of layman in geology) really impressive.
Please include more of the real life rock samples in these videos in the future! It's really cool to be able to see those
Just wanted to say, really good editing in this video! Cool information presented super fun! I appreciate this series lots
Lime stone makes more sense because it's more common and and the mountains of Sweden it was likely based off of are mainly limestone.
My interpretation of the stone and cobblestone generation is that it's the lava being cooled to create the block. I think with stone in particular, we just don't see the process of the lava actually taking its place in the next block just because of the how the game works.
LOVE THE INTRO IT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, I was going to do it for the first video and ran out of time. Its the real reason I made a part 2.
If you haven't already, make videos about what endstone and netherrack are. Obviously they don't actually exist irl, but you could investigate what they might be made of, or be similar too based on their colour and properties, such as the fact that netherrack burns indefinitely.
I love the intro so much
Coral is a relatively new block to the game still. So it’s not impossible that a limestone block will be added later
Stone being evaporite is a REVELATION
limestone just makes more sense, given how common and relatively fragile Stone is, compared to an incredibly rare form of volcanic rock. It just makes more sense that the land was made from oceanic sedimentary rock than that the entire world was covered by this one type of volcano. Plus, there are many places in the world that you can actually dig down 1-3 meters and find a layer of limestone.
HOW DARE YOU MAKE EDUCATIONAL CONTENT FUN! WHY DO I LIKE LEARNING ABOUT THIS?!
Does this make sense when water forms both stone and cobble? If stone forms like obsidian does, where lava comes down on water, then would it make sense for it to be the result of slower cooling of that lava or faster evaporation of the water?
For me this theory is more possible also what proves it is fact that if we assume that the content of calcite in STONE isn't constant and the stone in some cases could not be limestone but marl it would be possible that stone in Minecraft could metamorphose to DEEPSLATE (when the contetn of stone is more similar to marl) and also to create caves (when the stone has more calcite (CaCO3) in it.
If the water has some amount of suspended minerals, and the lava also cools into igneous rock, would the end result ever be, like, a mix of both? Like, for one, is it possible to have a rock that's maybe *part* igneous and *part* something else, and for two are there any natural processes that would make that happen (as opposed to just giving you two different, very distinct rocks)?
i dont remember if you included this in the first video- but does the presence of fossils in the minecraft world work against the igneous theory and towards this theory?
I would say normally it supports a sedimentary rock theory but carbonatie is cool enough that it wouldn't necessarily burn up bone. I'll have to think about this. Maybe i'll talk about it in the fossil episode.
Stone should be sedimentary rock for caves to form and also because it contains coal and iron which are also sedimentaries. However it can be generated from lava and generates near exposed lava lakes. At this point I would just assume that it can be both, igneous or sedimentary, game mechanics just don't distinguish them and they have the same texture.
I love you for that SoTN reference.
A quote I hope to scare someone without of context one day: "most limestone is formed from the skeletons of the dead."
My theory is that the water isn't water as we know it, but an organism of some sort. It expels objects regardless of their real-world density, at the same rate, unless it is affected by magma blocks or soul sand. It uproots saplings but is held back by lichen. It can grow to fill new places without lowering its level elsewhere - in fact, a full block of water which suddenly has one of its sides exposed stays put, and the extra water created by it never finds a level. Its properties have also changed since records began, which is not true of the physical properties of matter. Once upon a time, it ejected boats with great force, and now it makes them sink. It also used to have the property of being able to affect objects not in its space in e.g., water ladders, but no longer does this. This could be the result of evolution, if it is an organism. Or, it could be a magical entity, which would help explain the water ladder phenomenon better (as well as the unusual interactions with a column of bubbles dragging people *downwards* when directly over a magma block, as well as pushing them up when over the presumably magical soul sand) and perhaps the ways in which magic interacts with the world have changed due to some unknowable cataclysmic events.
That doesn't help explain what stone is, of course. But it's a thought nonetheless.