When I'm not exploring fresh caves or lands in minecraft, I'm busy trying to find deposits of diamond, gold and iron deep in the earth. So far I've just been digging around just above bedrock on a whim to look for these rare minerals but I've started thinking that I should be taking a more controlled, efficient approach to mining.

**What is the optimal mining strategy that yields the most rare minerals while minimizing blocks removed and time spent digging and traveling?**

**Edit:** The existing answers are great for mining, but no one has addressed travel time to and from the mine which is usually ~60 blocks downward and incredibly tedious. Solutions?
['https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/8310', 'https://gaming.stackexchange.com', 'https://gaming.stackexchange.com/users/1070/']
personally for getting up and down I use 2 vertical shafts, one completely filled with water, and the other with a 1 block deep layer of water at the bottom and use a boat
A nice method if you don't like staircasing down is to mine a 1x2 tunnel down to bedrock and then using water to get up and down. To get down, drop a water bucket in and then remove it to float down with the water. To get up, simply place blocks of water above you and then remove and replace them to work your way up. Also, mining around y 3-6 is a good strategy.