[Update]: The upcoming Caves & Cliffs update will be split into two parts.

A while back Mojang said that they would like to update and improve pretty much every single Minecraft area, all in an effort to make the world a lot more visually interesting and fun to explore. Mojang certainly weren't joking about that either, because they have just recently tackled the gigantic task of reworking the Nether, and now they're setting their sights on something that's quite literally gigantic - caves and cliffs!

You can expect to see greatly improved cave and mountain generation that should produce more wildly unique and exciting areas, as well as add two new styles of caves - lush caves and dripstone caves. What exactly these new caves might entail, besides the obvious visual theme, I'm afraid we'll just have to wait and see.

To help further flesh out the whole cave exploration theme, the Caves & Cliffs Update will be adding a brand new archeology system. By uncovering ancient artifacts and fossils you will be able to learn more about the world, and most likely, acquire a bunch of new goodies as well!

The rest of the announcement is mostly a scattershot of new features and ideas, so here's everything else coming with the Caves & Cliffs Update: crystals, telescopes, bundles, mountain goats, the sculk sensor block, the Warden as a new hostile mob, copper ore and building materials that turn green with age, and most importantly of all, an adorable new mob - the axolotl!

Once the Caves & Cliffs Update goes into testing, or at least has a fancy trailer, I'll make sure to let you know. Until then, you can check out the Minecraft Live recap over at the official website for a few more tidbits of information.