One major feature of the mod which many players may overlook is the ability to grind many of the bulk layer stones like sandstone, granite or limestone into an intermediate product called gravel. Sedimentary, igneous intrusive or igneous extrusive rocks each form their own gravel type containing pulverized trace minerals. Your dwarves (or goblins, humans etc) can then take the gravel and a container of water to an Ashery workshop where they sift out trace amounts of ore and discard the rock, using the Mining skill.

This process is not as economical as finding the mineral veins directly but can produce ores otherwise unavailable to your map. Additionally with minecarts and track stops, it is possible to scale a very large mining operation using large quarries and emplaced minecart routes, giving you a long-term mining operation.

Of course the millstone requires power and power is difficult to attain underground, so exploiting aquifers or cave pools for water wheels can become an engineering challenge to overcome.

Lastly filling buckets will not occur automatically but don't fret; water-filled minecarts provide an enormous amount of water for these reactions. These can be filled with screw pumps or a simple pit-pond designation over a small, enclosed minecart stockpile. After the minecart is in 6/7 water it will be filled.