*2.1. Overview*

In the first overview paper, Cathles [1] reminds us that basin formation is driven by global plate tectonics and that the basin fluids that accumulate resources can move over many hundreds of kilometers. Brine and petroleum fluid movements produce alteration patterns that can be vectors to resource accumulation. Flow can be steady or episodic. Di fferent styles of flow produce di fferent types of mineral and hydrocarbon resources. Permeability is not always an intrinsic property of a strata but is often dynamically controlled either by pressure or the presence of nonaqueous fluids. Shosa seals (the kind that can trap variably pressured gas for hundreds of millions of years) can massively fail and then reheal, repeatedly propelling large volumes of gas into subsurface aquifers. Seals can migrate through the stratigraphy, and porosity profiles record this migration and the causative pore pressure changes. Departures from the expected path of paleomagnetic pole migration may indicate the style of resource that should be sought in a basin. Basin processes are dynamic, diverse, and so large-scale that they are easy to overlook.
