Ravine

Ravine — also widely known as a canyon — is a naturally generated geological formation in Minecraft's Overworld, appearing as a deep, elongated crack slicing through underground rock layers. These formations occasionally break through to the surface, exposing cave systems and ore veins that would otherwise remain completely concealed beneath the terrain.

A typical Ravine stretches somewhere between 85 and 127 blocks in length and rarely exceeds 15 blocks in width, while depths can reach up to 62 blocks. Generation begins anywhere between Y-levels 10 and 72. In amplified worlds and in Bedrock Edition, a Ravine may extend all the way down to the bedrock layer, allowing lava to collect at the base and obsidian to form wherever water springs cascade into that molten rock.

The walls of a Ravine frequently host water springs, lava seeps, and aquifer openings that stream downward in thin cascades. These formations often intersect a wide variety of other underground structures, including caves, mineshafts, strongholds, amethyst geodes, and monster rooms. When a Ravine cuts beneath a river, frozen river, or swamp biome, the void that would ordinarily be open air instead fills with stone rather than remaining hollow.

At lower depths, air pockets within a Ravine may be replaced by lava lakes. Multiple ravines frequently cross one another at varying Y-levels, and before large noise caves were introduced in Java Edition 1.18, such intersections produced some of the most expansive open underground spaces the game could generate.