Obsidian

 After jumping on the bandwagon and finally obtaining Minecraft I immediately set a lofty goal for my self: an Obsidian tower.

my tower

Well after 5 hours of straight up Obsidian mining, and that's only breaking down the blocks (building the tower and gaining access to the Obsidian are not included in that time). Anyway after about a week you can now see the finished product to the left. It reaches the 118 level out of 128 and for those who don't know that much about Minecraft its high enough that falling = death.
       Anyway if any of you out there plan on creating a large scale structure of Obsidian there are a few things you should know. First off it takes a long time to mine, and I mean a LONG time. With a diamond pick it takes 15 seconds per block, with any other material it takes at least 50 seconds and you DO NOT obtain the block. Also Obsidian can only be created when running water meets standing lava (on the right). Due to the specific conditions needed

Natural Obsidian

to create Obsidian it is rather tedious to find or create, not to mention hazardous. So some advice to those of you who plan on mining Obsidian; follow the basic rules of Minecraft. That means don't mine straight down, and don't mine straight up, simple enough. But I would like to add two additional rules for any Obsidian Miner: keep at least one bucket of water with you at all times, and some cobblestone, incase of the any accidents involving lava.

Okay, now that you have some basic rules and safety information involving Obsidian I can go over how to find the Obsidian you wish to mine. The first way is the most rare: Natural Obsidian (shown above). As I stated before Obsidian takes specific conditions to be created, and because of this it is rare to find naturally formed Obsidian anywhere in the natural cycles of Minecraft. Basically if you stumble across natural Obsidian then you are one lucky son of a.... yeah.

But wait I said "first way" that means there are others (3 counting natural Obsidian), Obsidian created by the player, a.k.a you. There are two ways to do this, one is just a little less rare but more hazardous than natural Obsidian. This involves finding a large reservoir or "lake" of standing lava and pouring water from your bucket into it. (below)

lava lake 

I already said this but I will say it again, This Is Dangerous! I nearly died 3 different times while creating that Obsidian so be careful. Your water has a tendency to push you towards the lava if you don't pick it back up fast enough. Another hazard involves the actual mining, the water will only turn the surface of the lake into Obsidian so there is lava under neath the very stone you are standing on, DON'T MINE DOWN!! I did and I can tell you from experience you can't mine the Obsidian fast enough to get out of the lava. But this layered system can be a plus too because it means more Obsidian, so rejoice! but don't die.

small lava trough

The last "technique" I will bring up is the most effective of the three: Obsidian Farming. It is the safest by far, the only danger being the collection of lava. Obsidian farming is relatively simple: make a 2x whatever trough out of cobblestone and fill it with lava (right) and then pour your bucket of water over it. Your finished product should be some safe to mine Obsidian in any amount you have the patients to create.

If this went well then:
YAY!!! you did it!!!

Running water + standing lava = Obsidian

If not try placing your water on the cobblestone boarder, if you place it in the lava it will not work, and if you got cobblestone as a result then your lava
was not stationary. My advice would be to place your lava on the inward facing side of each of your border blocks.

finished obsidian

There is a downside to Obsidian Farming that I should warn you about. As you should know by now lava is dangerous and if you die in it, it will destroy all of your items. Another fact about lava is that it is an un-renewable resource, you can only collect lava springs, you can't collect the flowing, in addition once your lava has been turned to Obsidian, or cobblestone, or destroyed it's gone forever. So be careful and don't waste it! My last piece of advice is to break up your construction into sections, this will give you a sense of accomplishment, and if you do fall into lava you won't lose everything you worked for.

Go forth and accomplish your Obsidian based goals just remember my advice, I learned it the hard way so learn from my mistakes.

These are just some extra pics. Enjoy!

tower at night

yes that is my tower... again

 Oh and if you can read between the lines in my pictures you will notice two things: 1. A very tall Obsidian tower (or any tower for that matter) is an excellent way to find your spawn point or your mine if you get lost so I advise you to build one. 2. I may be a little too proud of my tower but you have to understand it took me a long time.