It is with great satisfaction and personal delight that I can write the foreword for this book Fundamentals of Basin and Petroleum Systems Modeling by Thomas Hantschel and Armin Ingo Kauerauf. It is a privilege for us geosci- tists that two outstanding physicists, with scienti?c backgrounds in numerical methods of continuum-mechanics and in statistical physics respectively could be won to deeply dive into the numerical simulation of complex geoprocesses. ThekeeninterestinthegeosciencesofThomasHantschelandArminI.Kau- auf and their patience with more descriptive oriented geologists, geochemists, sedimentologists and structural geologists made it possible to write this book, a profound and quantitative treatment of the mathematical and physical - pects of very complex geoprocesses. In addition to their investigative int- est during their patient dialogue with afore mentioned geological specialists Thomas Hantschel and Armin I. Kauerauf gained a great wealth of practical experience by cooperating closely with the international upstream petroleum industry during their years with the service company IES, Integrated Exp- ration Systems.
Their book will be a milestone in the advancement of modern geosciences. Thescienti?candthepracticalvalueofmoderngeosciencesreststoalarge degree upon the recognition of the complex interrelationship of individual processes, such as compaction, heat-, ?uid- and mass-?ow, reaction kinetics etc. and upon the sequential quanti?cation of the entire process chain. The intelligent usage of modern high speed computers made all this possible.