Mining - The Basics

Mining is the skill with which you extract ores from rocks. These ores can be smelted into bars and smithed into useful items such as armour and weapons. See the Smithing section of the Manual for more details.

Before you are able to start Mining, you will need to acquire a key piece of equipment commonly known as the pickaxe.

Initially, you will only be able to use a bronze pickaxe, available for purchase at Bob’s Brilliant Axes in Lumbridge, respawn points in Rimmington and the Barbarian Village, and in some general stores across RuneScape. As your skill increases you will find yourself able to wield pickaxes of a higher quality, making it far easier for you to mine.

Mining sites can be found throughout RuneScape, though not every Mining site will contain all possible ores. To locate the different Mining sites, look for the following symbol on your maps.

It is worth noting that not all Mining sites are shown on the map: you may need to search in other places, such as within dungeons, or along mysterious paths, to find other hidden sites.

Different rocks contain different types of ore. To find out what ore a specific rock contains you will need to 'Prospect' it. To do this, simply right-click on the rock and select the 'Prospect rocks' option from the list that appears on your screen. This will tell you what ore the rock contains. Over time, you will be able to tell which rocks contain what ore by the colour of the rocks instead of prospecting them.

Once you have found type of ore that you wish to obtain, you will need to start Mining the rock. You can do this by either using a wielded pickaxe, or just by having one in your inventory. When you select 'Mine Rocks' from the menu, your character will automatically use the pickaxe. If your pickaxe was in your inventory, it will return there; if you were wielding the pickaxe, it will stay in your wielded inventory slot.

The speed at which you mine ores is based on a combination of your Mining level and the type of pickaxe you are using. The animation has no effect on this.


When you become a skilled miner you will be able to mine increasingly difficult ores. This makes the process of extracting the ore from the rock take longer. The amount of time taken can be reduced by using a good quality pickaxe, so, when Mining, make sure that you use the highest level pickaxe that you can.

Different pickaxes you can use to extract ore from rocks are shown in the table below. You can obtain these different pickaxes by buying them from Nurmof in the Dwarven Mines.

Pickaxe	Level Required
Bronze	1
Iron	1
Steel	6
Mithril	21
Adamant	31
Rune	41
Inferno Adze*	41
Dragon pickaxe~	61

* The Inferno Adze is a reward for maintaining the beacon network.
~ The dragon pickaxe is dropped by chaos dwarves in the Chaos Dwarf Battlefield.

The Mining level required ONLY applies when you wish to use the pickaxe as a tool to mine rocks. If you do not have the required Mining level, you may still wield the pickaxe as a weapon (provided you have the necessary Attack level to do so). For example, if you have a Mining level of 30 and you obtain a rune pickaxe (which needs a Level 41 Mining to be used), you may still use it to attack monsters, but if you try to mine coal ore with it you will not be able to.

Click here to view the Mining FAQs

More articles in Mining Mining - The Basics Mining - Ores Mining - Gems Mining - Mining Sites Mining - Mining Sites (Members)

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