Some people play Minecraft in Survival Mode for mining and crafting, and some play to build things in Creative Mode. In every Minecraft update, the Minecraft team tries to make both player groups happy.
That’s why, in the 1.16 Nether Update, they have included numerous blocks that exist only for decorative reasons – alongside plenty of new and exciting mobs to defeat and cool new items to collect. And one of the most interesting is our block of the week: Basalt.
Basalt can only be found naturally in the Nether. It forms in spikes and pillars in Soul Sand Valleys, where you find soul sand and soul soil, and it’s also possible to find entire Basalt Deltas, where the very ground you walk on is made of nothing but basalt!
It’s surprisingly easy to collect – mine it with a pickaxe and it’ll drop. You can also make it by flowing lava into a space above soul soil and next to blue ice. It’s pretty blast resistant, making it a good material for building houses in the Nether, or anywhere else for that matter.
Speaking of building, there are a few things you’ll need to know if you want to use basalt to its fullest. First is that it comes in two versions – raw and polished. You can convert raw basalt into the more “modern” polished basalt in a stonecutter. Then the second is that they need to be placed carefully, a bit like logs, so that the textures line up in the right direction. Otherwise, you will get messy, “uneven” textures. No one wants that!
If nothing else, you’ve almost definitely seen it on the Moon. The darker areas on the surface of the Moon are plains of basalt, formed in volcanic eruptions between about one and four billion years ago. Lunar basalts are slightly different from the ones on Earth – they have weird textures and minerals, mostly due to the lack of oxygen and water up there.
Back on Earth, there are lots of different kinds of basalt rock that are created in different ways. If a volcano erupts in the air, the lava tends to form frothy-textured basalts, sometimes with lava tubes inside. If it flows more thickly, and cools fast, then fractures build up and split into polygons (like at the Giant’s Causeway). The faster it cools, the smaller the polygons.
Finally, if basalt erupts underwater or flows into the sea, then it’ll form distinctive “pillow” shapes that break apart sometimes to form a new pillow. This is pretty spectacular (and pretty dangerous) to watch! So when you’re exploring the new biomes coming in the Nether update, marvel at the basalt pillars and take a moment to wonder how they might have formed long ago.
Basalt is used in construction (building blocks are sometimes made from basalt) and in making statues. Heating basalt makes stone wool, which is an excellent thermal insulator.
Stay tuned for more blocks of the week!