Mining

Mining is an action in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. 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 (i.e. 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 it's 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
There are 9 different types of ore that can be mined in Skyrim. .

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
When the message in the top left of the screen displays "ore recieved", it will only show twice, but you will have recieved three (all veins yield three ore).

When the player starts to mine, they will continually dig, but no messages for recieving the ore will be displayed and the player will continue to mine unless interrupted (for example, the player moves)(tested, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC).

Sometimes there is a glitch where ore will regain its coloring but be unable to be mined(and on occasion the player will be able to walk through some of the more protruding ores). This can be fixed by exiting the mine and re-entering.

(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.

Rarely, activating "mine" will bring up the rest menu (PS3).

Trivia

 * It is possible to mine ore by equipping one or two pickaxes and swinging at the ore vein. This is possibly a reference to the game Minecraft where the player "mines" ore by hitting it repeatedly with a pickaxe.
 * 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.