The miniheader forms the minimum data required to form a blockchain and calculate chain work. It (the hash of the extended header, and the nonce) is the minimum a light client might store if no transactions interesting to it exist in the block.
uint256 hashPrevBlock: This the hash of the parent block. As specified in the Satoshi-header.
uint32_t nBits: This is the target required to solve this block.
The extended header provides information about this block and its location in the blockchain.
uint256 hashAncestor: hash of a specific ancestor block
uint256 hashMerkleRoot: block’s transactions’ merkle root
uint256 hashTxFilter: commitment to a probabilistic transaction/address filter that allows light clients to discover if they may need the block. (e.g. neutrino)
uint32_t nTime: block creation time in seconds since the epoch
uint64_t height: block height
uint256 chainWork: Cumulative work in the chain
uint64_t size: Block size in bytes, not counting the nonce
uint64_t txCount: Number of transactions in the block
uint64_t maxSize: Maximum allowed block size in bytes of a block at this height
uint64_t feePoolAmt: quantity of satoshis in fee pool AFTER transaction evaluation (algorithmically determined).
vector[0-128] bytes utxoCommitment: A commitment to the currently unspent coins
vector[] minerData: TBD
vector[0-16] bytes nonce: data required to solve the block POW
uint256 hashAncestor: This is the hash of an ancestor block. It is used to quickly skip backwards in the blockchain, allowing one to efficiently prove that a block has a particular ancestor. This field MUST contain the hash of the ancestor block a height Ha where
Ha={H/2,ifH&1==1H&bitwiseNot(lowest1bit(H),otherwise
In English, if the height is odd, find the ancestor at half the height (todo, make this more useful). Otherwise, set the lowest 1 bit in the height to 0 and find that ancestor.
When traversing, the even heights allow code to take larger and larger jumps, resulting in about 2log2(n) steps to find an ancestor. If the code would jump beyond the target ancestor, it can use the hashPrevBlock field to move back a single step. If the odd heights followed this algorithm, they would be redundant with hashPrevBlock, so they function as a big step backwards.