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[nanomage]

I think it has not been already mentioned: you can just keep digging down and mine the blue stuff. It's always there if your embark is bigger than 2x2. It's usually there even with 2x2.

[GotIt_00]

If you find metal difficulties really frustrating, you can go back and download .18. You have to use water to farm, and it's missing a lot of great stuff from the newest version (fowl, rock pots, bees, clay, pasture zones, etc.). On the other hand, you can embark knowing you have sedimentary layers and iron. That's worth it for me.

[i2amroy]

Or you could, you know, turn down metal scarcity and get more metals.

[Faeryx]

Turning down metal scarcity was already mentioned, and I did, all the way.

[Faeryx]

Well, I just found some native gold, I haven't mined any out yet, but I am assuming this is a good sign that I won't be stuck with nothing but galena and tetrahedrite forever.

[Garath]

those are not too bad. Galena and tetrahedrite will both supply some silver, copper, while not good, is good enough to hold out while you buy every scrap of steel, iron, tin, bismuth - if you want - and bronze. The lead is good for practicing some metal crafts, make bins and cages. The gold will make it easier to keep nobles happy and your dwarfs with a nice statue garden, but wont add more, except probably more ambushes and sieges.

We've all had worse embarks (galena, sphalerite and casserite, woohoooo), yours doesnt sound too bad

[Neowulf]

Get dfhack and use prospector when you first start a fortress up.

[Faeryx]

Get dfhack and use prospector when you first start a fortress up.

No.

[tj333]

Leather and bone armor until you kill enough goblins to make metal armor. It is not as bad as it could be.

[Neowulf]

Get dfhack and use prospector when you first start a fortress up.

No.

Your choice.
Just don't complain when you don't have everything you wanted available. Iron is not a guarantee.

[daggaz]

Another thing to do is embark on a river junction.  Use tab in the embark screen, and look for major height differences between the two rivers. This pretty much guarantees you a) a natural waterfall and b) a huge chasm.  The chasm gives you a limited, but highly useful peak at the stone layers.  Its also a great defensive feature and makes for interesting fort structures. 

[Drawde]

The multiple biomes thing I mentioned above can work both ways.  Each biome can have different minerals in it.  So if you get multiple biomes you can check each biome for ores.

When selecting a site use the funtion keys (F1, F2, F3...) to check each biome out, IF they show up on the selection screen.  It will tell you if multiple biomes are in the site selected.  This shows you roughly where each biome is on the map.  Using the function keys shows you the information for that biome, including the rest of that biome on the map that you haven't selected.

Multiple biomes is why you might have one corner of your embark desert and the rest forest, or why some squares freeze sooner than others.

I often just show, NOT select, a 16x16 embark and shuffle through the biomes.  I then make the embark square smaller and move it to the noted area.