INTRODUCTION During the years 2007–2015, a new direction for industry was appearing. Revitalized waves of production emerged from the world’s richest petroleum bearing basins (Ahlbrandt, 2015; Fryklund, 2018). An all-out effort to optimize extensive infrastructure, using new technology and basin scale thinking, required an action plan for geoscientists. In 2018–2020, AAPG responded with a new series of programs and publications themed around super basins (Sternbach, 2018). AAPG instituted a series of super basin themed conferences, forums, and publications to assist geoscientists. AAPG has convened 14 events with 5,000 total attendees focused on super basin topics. This is the third special issue on super basins for the AAPG Bulletin and the editors hope there will be others. All of these efforts form the Super Basin Initiative. Super basin research should foster exploration in areas where the key fundamentals exist for technical and commercial success. Most giant fields occur in super basins, and many more giant fields are yet to be found in super basins. Super basin initiatives do not replace basic exploration, but rather they enhance exploration by focusing the exploration effort into fertile ground.