Minecraft: Treasure Chests Can Be Buried Under Stone & Here’s Where To Look

Finding a buried treasure map in Minecraft makes you feel like you’ve found a map of Atlantis in the real world. It’s something that almost always gets priority, but once you’ve found the general location of the buried treasure, it can get frustrating having to dig through a ton of blocks to get to the chest, sometimes with no luck. So how do you make it easier, and can treasure chests be buried under a stone and something other than sand?

What blocks can treasure chests spawn under?

There are no rules regarding what type of block buried treasure chests can spawn under. Terrain generation is to blame here. As long as the buried treasure chest spawns in a beach or snowy beach biome (and stony shore in Bedrock Edition), there’s no rule as to what type of block it can generate under.

Usually, it’ll spawn under sand or gravel blocks since they make up most of Minecraft’s beaches, but as mentioned before, it can also spawn under stone blocks. It can be generated under the surface of the ocean floor as well, which also makes them covered by sand or gravel blocks.

Terrain generation can also make them spawn under ores such as coal or iron and other blocks like diorite as long as the blocks are suitable for the terrain that these chests are found in, which includes blocks like dirt, clay, and even sandstone.

How far down is buried treasure in Minecraft?

There are no rules about how deep a buried treasure chest can spawn. Speaking from experience, on average, these chests can spawn up to 40 blocks down from ground level, but this number can be lower or higher because they are part of the terrain generation. It all depends on your seed.

The best way to find buried treasure in Minecraft is to use chunk coordinates, but that also doesn’t tell you how deep the treasure is. You can find the precise block, though, which should make finding the treasure much easier when you start digging up the beach it’s located in.

Why can’t I find buried treasure in Minecraft?

You need two things to find buried treasure in Minecraft successfully: patience and a buried treasure map. If you already have patience but don’t have the map, let’s see how you can obtain one next.

Buried treasure maps are obtained through explorer maps that you can trade for with cartographers or through finding them in different structures. The Ocean Explorer map differs from the Buried Treasure Explorer maps in the sense that with buried treasure, an X marks the spot, whereas the Ocean Explorer maps show icons of the generated structures.

You can obtain these maps by trading for 13 emeralds and a compass. Make sure you don’t use and abuse the same cartographer for the maps because you’ll always receive the same map. Different cartographers sell different ocean explorer maps, so use this knowledge to your advantage, so you don’t waste precious emeralds.

You can also find buried treasure maps in shipwrecks and underwater ruins. So, now that you know how to find the map, all that’s left is for you to have patience in finding the spot and digging it out but did you know that you can find buried treasure without a map as well?

Buried treasure maps

Suppose you’ve never used a buried treasure map before. It’ll show up blank with different orange hues marking land and water. As you begin exploring the area, the map will start to reveal itself, helping you find the X. Your player icon is displayed like an arrow. The pointy part is where you’re facing, so once you find the red X, ensure you’re facing the X and start paddling while on a boat to the X.

X marks the spot, but not really

When you get to a buried treasure map, you’ll quickly notice that the X indicating where the treasure is is quite large. It makes sense that the treasure would be buried right in the center of the X, but that’s rarely, if ever, the case. Sometimes you’ll get lucky, and the treasure will be exposed, but that’s also rarely the case.

The best way to position yourself while searching for buried treasure is to position yourself in the center of the bottom half of the X, facing away from it. Once in this position, you’ll have the best chance to dig out the treasure quickly.

How speedrunners find buried treasure

Buried treasure is likely the most valuable type of chest out there since it can spawn with the most significant amount of diamonds, and it’s the only source where you can get the heart of the sea used to craft a conduit. Speedrunners don’t use conduits, but they benefit from diamonds.

Most of the time, you’ll see speedrunners loading up multiple worlds at once and then choosing to speedrun the one that looks the best. Often, they’ll decide to start the run on a sandy beach because there’s a chance that buried treasure is there. So how do they find it without a map? They use chunk borders.

In Java Edition, buried treasure always generates at chunk coordinate 9 (out of 0 through 15), always faces east, and generates on both the X and Z axes. You can use the debug screen to locate that exact chunk coordinate and find the buried treasure that way.

The same rules apply in Bedrock Edition but always generate on chunk coordinate 8. Once you are near the X of the buried treasure, press F3 + G to show chunk borders and F3 to open the debug screen. Then look at the Chunk coordinates located two rows below the XYZ coordinates. The coordinates should display 9, random number, 9 (8, random number, 8 in Bedrock Edition). Once you find that area, dig straight down, and the buried treasure should be there.

A thing to note here is that this will help you find only one buried treasure chest. Others have different chunk coordinates and may not be equivalent to the buried treasure chest you’re trying to find.

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