Suspicious sand and gravel in Minecraft 1.20 update: Where to find, uses, and more

Minecraft 1.20 is finally bringing the long-awaited archeology feature that players desired back in the Caves & Cliffs update. After seeking out two new blocks, known as suspicious sand and suspicious gravel, players can brush them and acquire different items. Some of these items are new archeology-centric ones like pottery shards (or sherds as Mojang has coined them) and sniffer eggs.

However, where can players find these new suspicious blocks in Minecraft? How do they work, and do they have any other uses? Currently, players have been able to gain some insight into these new blocks, thanks to Java snapshots and Bedrock previews.

For Minecraft fans who don't know much about the suspicious blocks yet, it may be a good time to review what is currently known about them.

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What players should know about suspicious sand and gravel in Minecraft

Without suspicious sand/gravel blocks in Minecraft 1.20, players wouldn't get far in their archeological pursuits. Without these blocks and a brush, the idea of excavating ancient items is still a dream. However, players won't simply find these blocks laying about, as they only appear in certain generated structures.

Suspicious sand is considered somewhat more common, as it appears in more structures, but players will also find suspicious gravel in a few different locations.

Both suspicious sand and gravel in Minecraft are incredibly fragile blocks, and they're influenced by gravity. If players are searching for these blocks, they'll want to be incredibly careful. This is because if a suspicious block falls and lands, it will break automatically without dropping its items.

Furthermore, players can't break suspicious blocks to pick them up, even with the Silk Touch enchantment. The only way to collect these items in the vanilla game is to take them from the Creative Mode inventory or use commands.

Here's where to find suspicious blocks in Minecraft 1.20:

• Suspicious Sand - Desert wells, desert pyramids, warm ocean ruins, trail ruins.
• Suspicious Gravel - Ocean ruins and trail ruins.

Once fans have found these structures and start investigating, they'll need a keen eye to spot the suspicious blocks, as they tend to blend in with standard sand and gravel.

Players should check the surface textures of the sand and gravel. Upon doing so, they'll eventually notice that suspicious sand and gravel have different textures from their ordinary counterparts. By comparison, suspicious sand and gravel have textures with more definition and what appear to be holes or pits.

If players have a brush on hand, they can use the tool to brush these suspicious blocks. After a few moments of brushing, the items contained within suspicious sand and gravel will pop out and can be collected. The blocks will then convert into standard sand or gravel blocks respectively.

It should also be noted that players won't be able to brush and collect items from suspicious sand/gravel blocks that they place themselves. Only those that naturally generate in the environment will provide reward items, so players will have to keep an eye out as much as possible when investigating the right generated structures.