Is prospecting required to reveal ores?

[Beanz]

Began my journey in finding copper ore (Homo Sapien run).

Simple question: do ores not show up in blocks until you've prospected the area? I ask because of a recent event when caving, and not seeing copper until after I had prospected the area and seeing copper appear in a location I had thought I seen to contain no copper (i.e. the rock blocks I saw previously not having copper, suddenly showed copper).

I also saw the same case from a youtube video, where they explained how one finds copper (harder to tell if its the case due to camera angles not showing the blocks previous state prior to using a prospecting mode).

[BigBadBeef]

That is not the case at all. Ores spawn when the world is generated.

And finding copper deposits is childishly easy. The nuggets you find on the surface indicate a deposit below, usually just one or two blocks down fater you've cleared the dirt, sometimes not even that.

[Owktree]

Definitely not required.  Previous to having prospecting picks on the MP server I am currently on I was scouting for surface deposit markers (bits on the surface) and also going into shallow caves to look for ore deposits in the walls.  (Can also find on the sides of hills where stone is exposed.)  I was finding both copper and tin ore this way that then could be mined later on when we had the tools.

[Maelstrom]

On 3/30/2024 at 1:55 AM, BigBadBeef said:

The nuggets you find on the surface indicate a deposit below, usually just one or two blocks down fater you've cleared the dirt, sometimes not even that.

Surface deposits can spawn up to 10 blocks below the nugget, which may be the 6th or 7th stone block below the dirt level.