Minecraft Caves and Cliffs guide

The Caves and Cliffs update came out in two parts. Part I was Minecraft 1.17 in June 2021, and Part II was Minecraft 1.18 on 30 November 2021. Both are part of the game today, so any current server has them. This guide covers what each part added and how to get started with the new blocks, mobs and terrain.

Checked against the Minecraft Java Edition 1.17 and 1.18 release notes and Minecraft 26.3, October 2026.

What Part I added

Part I (1.17) added copper, amethyst and deepslate. It also brought the axolotl, the glow squid and the goat, plus candles, the spyglass, the lightning rod, powder snow, pointed dripstone and tinted glass.

What Part II added

Part II (1.18) rebuilt the world around the new content:

• The world is 384 blocks tall, from y -64 up to y 320.
• Noise caves and aquifers, which make bigger caves and flooded caverns.
• New mountain biomes: meadow, grove, snowy slopes, jagged peaks, frozen peaks and stony peaks.
• Two cave biomes: lush caves and dripstone caves.
• A new ore distribution and large ore veins.

Copper and what it makes

Craft nine copper ingots into a copper block. Right-click a copper block with honeycomb to wax it. Waxed copper does not oxidise. Copper also makes:

• Lightning rod: three copper ingots in a vertical line.
• Spyglass: an amethyst shard above two copper ingots, all in a single column of the grid.
• Candle: a string above a honeycomb.

Amethyst geodes

Geodes generate underground in the Overworld, up to y 30. They have a smooth basalt outer layer, then calcite, then amethyst blocks inside. Budding amethyst grows buds on its sides, which become clusters. A fully grown cluster drops four amethyst shards when mined with a pickaxe. Mine it with Silk Touch to take the cluster whole.

Deepslate

Deepslate sits in the deepest parts of the world. From y 8 downwards it gradually replaces stone. It drops cobbled deepslate, so mine it with Silk Touch if you want the block itself.

Mobs

• Axolotl: found in lush caves, in water above clay. Feed a bucket of tropical fish to breed it, or scoop one up in a water bucket.
• Glow squid: spawns in water below y 30.
• Goat: spawns on mountain peaks such as jagged peaks and frozen peaks.

Animal breeding chart lists what each of the other animals eats.

Find the new biomes

An operator can run these in game to print coordinates for the nearest cave biome:

/locate biome minecraft:lush_caves
/locate biome minecraft:dripstone_caves

Light and monsters

Since 1.18 hostile mobs spawn only where the light from blocks is 0. Daylight still prevents spawning as it did before, so any torch or other light source nearby now keeps a spot clear of spawns.

On your server

In chunks you already explored, Mojang's notes say surface height and biomes blend into the new generation, new terrain fills in below y 0 where old bedrock sat at y 0, and old bedrock between y 0 and y 4 becomes deepslate. Caves may not line up. Take a backup before you move a world to 1.18 or later, and never move it back to an older version. Change your Minecraft version or mod loader has the steps and the warning.