So I'm lost in a cave
I brought a ton of wood and stuff in with me, so I decided to just settle on the edge of this lava pit and explore.
...so far the results are good. That's from one cave system in less than an hour's gameplay; i've used a total of one iron pick getting this far, as I found diamond before it even broke. Since then I've found a few more diamond deposits, and there's still about ten deposits of redstone unmined (one of which has more than 12 blocks exposed already) so I probably have about half a chest worth of redstone if you count all that.