Minecraft wiki entry for Diamonds, associated text: To create a diamond mine, first, get down to the diamond layers. Besides following existing caves, players can just dig a vertical shaft, quarry, or staircase down to the diamond-containing layers (but remember the cardinal rule: don't dig straight down). Most players prefer level 11 because that puts the "lava flood" at foot level. Deeper tunnels are likely to expose lava at head level or from above, but at level 11, lava is likely to be exposed in the floor. This may block further progress, but probably won't flood down the tunnel, and a player cannot fall down a pit into the lava. For Bedrock edition, level 11 also has the biggest chance of finding diamonds. Once at the chosen level, begin branch mining or mining long, level hallways two blocks high and one block wide. Sooner or later (often later), mining exposes a diamond ore blob. Sometimes, the player can find two or more diamond blobs intersecting together while branch mining. Remember that in 1.18+ level mining at level -59, right above bedrock, gives you good odds of getting diamond.