Hard Worker Chop wood, mine ore, and cook food
Points	10
Trophy

Mining is an action in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. ^[1] Mining is performed at ore veins using a Pickaxe (required). Ore veins produce their respective ores and possibly a precious gem.

Ore veins generally replenish their ores after about a month (in-game) if the area is marked as "cleared", otherwise it replenishes in 10 days. Some veins (e.g. Ebony) respawn sooner, or later than the one month. Each vein (regardless of ore type) will yield three ore, and zero to two precious gems.

Note: During replenish time, the vein may regain its colored striations, but is unable to be mined. This is just a way to display progression of replenishment, and is no cause for worry.

Mining: Quantity

All ore veins contain 3 pieces of ore, and possibly some gems. A popular misconception is that if continually mining, the player only receives 2 ore from each vein. When the player hits the ore 9 times, you DO receive 3 ore per vein, however the game only displays the message twice (1st & 3rd Ores). The sound for receiving an ore still plays on the 6th hit, and if you check your inventory you will find that you have 3 more ore. Note: If you receive a precious gem (Garnet, Ruby, etc.) on the 6th hit it will display the message for the gem, but not the ore.

Ore

Main article: Ore

There are 9 different types of ore that can be mined in Skyrim. ^[2].

Ore Veins are all across the world of Skyrim from simple mines to the tops of mountains. You can identify that they are mineable by the different colored striations that stand out in the typical grey rocks that dominate the landscape of Skyrim. Enviromental conditions can make it somewhat dificult to spot and identify a node. When a vein is mined completely, it will lose the colored striations associated to that mineral type.

Depending on your style of game play, travel may increase or decrease your chances of encountering world mining nodes. Players that use fast traveling will be less likely to encounter nodes than a player that travels via horse back or on foot.

Locations

Locations specific to each ore are noted on the pages below:

• Corundum Ore
• Ebony Ore
• Geode Vein
• Gold Ore
• Iron Ore
• Malachite Ore
• Moonstone Ore
• Orichalcum Ore
• Quicksilver Ore
• Silver Ore

Ore Vein Reference

Each vein has its own distinctive color and pattern, which disappears after the node has been mined and the rock returns to its normal gray color.

Bugs

•  PC   360   PS3 Sometimes there is a glitch where an ore vein will regain its coloring as replenished but no dialogue for mining appears. To fix this, find a house/cave/mine nearby, enter it, exit it (if you're already in a mine, simply exit it then re-enter it) then go back to the ore vein and the dialogue for mining will appear. (Also, rarely, this may be fixed by equiping the pickaxe and "attacking" the ore vein.)
•  PC   360   PS3 When the player starts to mine, they will continually dig, but no messages for receiving the ore will be displayed and the player will continue to mine unless interrupted. This also can be fixed by equipping the pickaxe and manually "attack" the ore vein.
•  PC   360   PS3 When the message in the top left of the screen displays "ore received", it will only show twice, but you will have recieved three (all veins yield three ore). However, the "ore received" sound will occur all three times (confirmed for XBOX 360). You can equip the pickaxe and "attack" the ore, this will show all 3 ores that you receive.
•  PC  If you equip a pickaxe and, rather than "attacking" the ore vein to mine, simply activate the vein to mine normally, the pickaxe will stay equipped on your belt, but you will use a "second" one to mine with. You do not keep this second pickaxe - the glitch is purely visual.
•  PS3  Rarely, activating "mine" will bring up the rest menu.
•  360   PC   Occasionally, hitting the activate key a second time before mining starts will cause mining to halt after a moment with no ores gained. The vein will still appear ready for mining complete with contextual activate command, but pressing activate again will do nothing. (Conjecture: the error may resolve itself when the vein replenishes) (You can gain the ores by equiping your pickaxe and "attacking" the ore vien)

Trivia

• If you have enough stamina you can mine ore quickly by having a pickaxe equipped in one hand and hitting a vein repeatedly with a one-handed-block-bash.
• Another possible way of mining faster is using the Elemental Fury shout prior to manually hitting the ore with a pickaxe.

References and Sources

1. ↑ http://www.gameswelt.tv/19748/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/video-interview-mit-todd-howard.html
2. ↑ http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/03/skyrim-has-60000-lines-of-dialogue-new-dragon-shouts-revealed-horses-confirmed/