Ocean Ruins

The Ocean Ruins is scattered sunken buildings - stone in cold seas, sandstone in warm ones - patrolled by drowned. It generates in the Overworld, across 6 biome types - Ocean, Deep Ocean, Cold Ocean, Lukewarm Ocean, Warm Ocean, and Frozen Ocean - which makes the Ocean Ruins common to come across as you explore.

Expect to find the Ocean Ruins between about Y 30 and Y 65, so set your search to that elevation. Ocean ruins are common on the sea floor and come in two sets: cold-water ruins built from stone bricks and warm-water ruins built from sandstone. The warm variant is the one that can hold suspicious sand for archaeology, including the otherwise-unobtainable Sniffer Egg.

Added back in Minecraft 1.13, its most recognisable trait is captured in one line: ruined stone or sandstone buildings.

On Java Edition you can run /locate structure minecraft:ocean_ruin_cold and /locate structure minecraft:ocean_ruin_warm - separate commands because the Ocean Ruins has more than one structure variant, each with its own id.

Without commands, head for one of the Ocean Ruins's biomes (Ocean, Deep Ocean, Cold Ocean, Lukewarm Ocean, Warm Ocean, and Frozen Ocean) and search the Y 30 to 65 band. Because it is common, Ocean Ruins sightings are frequent, so you should not have to range very far.

Use /locate structure minecraft:ocean_ruin_cold or minecraft:ocean_ruin_warm. Common on the ocean floor. Dive down and look for stone or sandstone structures with drowned nearby.

Once inside, small chests inside the ruins roll the ocean-ruin table and frequently carry a Buried Treasure Map. Warm ruins additionally hide suspicious sand blocks you brush for pottery sherds and, rarely, a Sniffer Egg.

Among the Ocean Ruins's randomised drops, the most common pulls are Wheat at about 45%, Buried Treasure Map at about 43%, Coal at about 30%, and Enchanted Fishing Rod at about 22%. At the other end of the odds sit the jackpot items: Pottery Shard (various) at roughly 8% and Gold Nugget at roughly 10%, so opening multiple Ocean Ruins chests pays off over time.

What makes the Ocean Ruins genuinely worth the trip is a set of exclusive rewards you cannot get reliably anywhere else - Sniffer Egg (suspicious sand, warm ruins) and Pottery Sherds - so this is the place to come for them.

Expect to face Drowned inside or around the Ocean Ruins.

The specific hazards to plan around: Drowned can carry tridents and drowning risk while looting. There is more to watch for too - some ruins are deep underwater - so do not rush.

Each ruin is a small, broken structure - a single building or a loose cluster - half-buried in the seabed, often draped in seagrass. Inside sit the loot chest and, in warm-water ruins, suspicious sand blocks that must be brushed rather than mined.

Other things you will notice as you explore: suspicious sand and gravel blocks, Drowned spawn inside, and cold ocean variants use stone bricks.

Warm ocean ruins can contain suspicious sand blocks with sniffer eggs, which are otherwise unobtainable. Use a brush to carefully extract items from suspicious sand and gravel. Buried treasure maps point to nearby buried treasure chests.