Suspicious Sand

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The features on this page are exclusive to Experimental Gameplay in Bedrock Edition.

These features may be properly added in a future update, but currently require enabling one or more settings in the "Next Major Update" section of the Game Settings menu.

This article describes content that may be included in Java Edition.

This content has appeared in Java Edition 1.20 development versions, but the full update containing it has not been released yet.
This content already exists in Bedrock Edition.

Suspicious sand is a fragile gravity-affected block found in desert wells, desert pyramids, warm ocean ruins, and trail ruins. It can be brushed to extract structure-dependent items, including pottery shards. Suspicious sand will drop nothing if it is broken, and breaks if it falls any height or is moved with a piston.

Obtaining

Breaking

Suspicious sand is unobtainable by mining, even using a tool enchanted with Silk Touch. It is affected by gravity, but it always breaks with no drop after falling. It breaks immediately if pushed by a piston or sticky piston, and cannot be pulled by sticky pistons or slime block.

Block	Suspicious Sand
Hardness	?
Tool
Breaking time^[A]
Default	?
Wooden	?
Stone	?
Iron	?
Diamond	?
Netherite	?
Golden	?

↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.

Natural generation

Suspicious sand generates naturally in buried rooms under desert pyramids, as well as in the bottom of desert wells. It also generates within warm ocean ruins, which are the ones made of sandstone found in warm oceans. Some of the sand in trail ruins will be replaced it and generated.

Usage

Loot

Suspicious sand drops nothing when mined. It is affected by gravity, but breaks upon landing.

Using a brush, the player can extract an item from the suspicious sand. The latter will immediately be converted into regular sand. Items can only be extracted from naturally generated suspicious sand blocks. When placed by the player, nothing is produced after brushing.

Sounds

Generic

Java Edition:

Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
Block broken	Blocks	Once the block has broken	`block.suspicious_sand.break`	`subtitles.block.generic.break`	1.0	0.8	16
Block placed	Blocks	When the block is placed	`block.suspicious_sand.place`	`subtitles.block.generic.place`	1.0	0.8	16
Block breaking	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	`block.suspicious_sand.hit`	`subtitles.block.generic.hit`	0.25	0.5	16
None^{[sound 1]}	Entity-Dependent	Falling on the block with fall damage	`block.suspicious_sand.fall`	None^{[sound 1]}	0.5	0.75	16
Footsteps	Entity-Dependent	Walking on the block	`block.suspicious_sand.step`	`subtitles.block.generic.footsteps`	0.15	1.0	16

↑ ^a ^b MC-177082

Bedrock Edition:

Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
Blocks	Once the block has broken	`break.suspicious_sand`	1.0	0.8-1.0
Blocks	When the block is placed	`place.suspicious_sand`	1.0	0.8-1.0
Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	`hit.suspicious_sand`	0.23	0.5
Players	Falling on the block with fall damage	`step.suspicious_sand`	0.4	1.0
Players	Walking on the block	`step.suspicious_sand`	0.2	1.0
Players	Jumping from the block	`step.suspicious_sand`	0.12	1.0
Players	Falling on the block without fall damage	`step.suspicious_sand`	0.18	1.0

Unique

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Brushing Sand	Blocks	While a brush is brushing suspicious sand	`item.brush.brushing.sand`	`subtitles.item.brush.brushing.sand`	0.6	0.6	16
	Brushing Sand completed	Players^{[sound 1]}	When a brush finishes brushing suspicious sand	`item.brush.brushing.sand.complete`	`subtitles.item.brush.brushing.sand.complete`	1.0	1.0	16

↑ MC-260202

Bedrock Edition:

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Players	While a brush is brushing suspicious sand	`brush.suspicious_sand`	1.0	0.8-1.0
	Players	When a brush finishes brushing suspicious sand ^{[sound 1]}	`brush_completed.suspicious_sand`	1.0	0.8-1.0

↑ These sounds do not play due to MCPE-168805

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Form	Block tags	Item tags	Translation key
Suspicious Sand	`suspicious_sand`	Block & Item	`bamboo_plantable_on` `enderman_holdable` `sand` `lush_ground_replaceable` `mineable/shovel`	`sand`	`block.minecraft.suspicious_sand`

Name	Identifier
Block entity	`brushable_block`

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	Item ID^{[i 1]}	Translation key
Suspicious Sand	`suspicious_sand`	`-529`	Block & Giveable Item^{[i 2]}	Identical^{[i 3]}	`tile.suspicious_sand.name`

↑ ID of block's direct item form, which is used in savegame files and addons.
↑ Available with /give command.
↑ The block's direct item form has the same id with the block.

Block states

In Bedrock Edition, suspicious sand uses the following block states:

Suspicious Sand/BS

Block data

Block entity data
- Tags common to all block entities
- LootTable: Optional. Loot table to be used to generate the hidden item when brushed.^{[note 1]}
- LootTableSeed: Optional. Seed for generating the loot table. 0 or omitted use a random seed.^{[note 1]}
- item: The item in the block. May not exist.

↑ ^a ^b Both loot table tags are removed once the items have been generated.

Falling block entity

Dynamic block entity data
- - Tags common to all entities
- BlockState: The falling block represented by this entity.
  - Name: The resource location of the block.
  - Properties: Optional. The block states of the block.
    - Name: The block state name and its value.
- DropItem: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the block should drop as an item when it breaks. Any block that does not have an item form with the same ID as the block does not drop even if this is set.
- FallHurtAmount: Multiplied by the FallDistance to calculate the amount of damage to inflict. By default this value is always 2.
- FallHurtMax: The maximum hit points of damage to inflict on entities that intersect this falling block. For vanilla falling blocks, always 40 × 20.
- HurtEntities: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the block should hurt entities it falls on.
- TileEntityData: Optional. The tags of the block entity for this block.
- Time: The number of ticks the entity has existed. When Time goes above 600, or above 100 while the block is below Y=1 or is outside building height, the entity is deleted.

History

October 3, 2020

Excavation blocks were announced at Minecraft Live 2020 to be part of archaeology features. The excavation sand was mentioned but not shown in the video footage.

April 14, 2021

Archaeology features were delayed.

February 10, 2023

The archaeology features were re-announced, including suspicious sand.

Java Edition

1.20
(Experimental)

23w07a

Added suspicious sand behind the Update 1.20 experimental datapack.

It has the following loot:

Structure	Item	Probability
Desert Pyramid	Archer Pottery Shard	¹⁄₇
	Prize Pottery Shard	¹⁄₇
	Skull Pottery Shard	¹⁄₇
	Gunpowder	¹⁄₇
	TNT	¹⁄₇
	Diamond	¹⁄₇
	Emerald	¹⁄₇
Desert Well	Arms Up Pottery Shard	³⁄₇
	Brick	¹⁄₇
	Stick	¹⁄₇
	Suspicious Stew	¹⁄₇
	Emerald	¹⁄₇

Upcoming Java Edition

1.20

23w12a

Changed the loot of the suspicious sand in desert temple and in desert well.

Suspicious sand now generates in warm ocean ruins and the trail ruins.

23w14a

Suspicious sand now has an assigned tool (shovel).

A suspicious sand is now visible on the top layer of the newly added room in desert temple.

Suspicious sand can now have cacti and sugar cane planted on it.

Suspicious sand can no longer be replaced by sculk when a sculk catalyst triggers.

Bedrock Edition

Next Major Update
(Expermiental)

beta 1.19.70.23

Added suspicious sand behind the Next Major Update experimental toggle.

It has the following loot:

Structure	Item	Probability
Desert Pyramid	Archer Pottery Shard	¹⁄₇
	Prize Pottery Shard	¹⁄₇
	Skull Pottery Shard	¹⁄₇
	Gunpowder	¹⁄₇
	TNT	¹⁄₇
	Diamond	¹⁄₇
	Emerald	¹⁄₇
Desert Well	Arms Up Pottery Shard	³⁄₇
	Brick	¹⁄₇
	Stick	¹⁄₇
	Suspicious Stew	¹⁄₇
	Emerald	¹⁄₇