Amethyst Shards in Minecraft can be difficult to locate. You have to find them in budding Amethyst blocks, which spawn alongside Amethyst geodes. When a budding Amethyst creates a bud, that bud needs to reach its full maturity to become an Amethyst cluster, you can then mine these specific spawns to obtain Amethyst shards. The real difficulty you’re going to encounter will be finding these budding Amethyst blocks and ensuring you receive the most Amethyst Shards you can when you encounter them.
You can find budding Amethyst blocks spawning in Amethyst geodes. The geodes will appear underground. We were able to locate our first one when exploring underground water caverns and stumbled upon a large black dome. The dome contains the Amethyst right in the middle, which has a distinct dark purple coloration. You can find them below y=70 and bedrock, so you need to be prepared to dig deep into your Minecraft world to find them.
When you arrive inside an Amethyst geode, you want to find the largest crystals there. These will be the Amethyst clusters. These will be the largest of the crystals, and they should appear with four shards sticking out and one in the middle. The only way to obtain Amethyst Shards from these clusters is to use an iron, diamond, or netherite pickaxe. Every Amethyst cluster has a chance to drop four shards, but you can increase the number of shards you receive by using a pickaxe enchanted with Fortune I, II, or III. The higher level of Fortune enchantment you have on your pickaxe, the better chances you’ll have obtaining more shards. At Fortune III, you can potentially receive up to 16 shards.
You can use these shards to craft a variety of objects, such as a block of Amethyst, a spyglass, or tinted glass.
