The Alpine-Mediterranean area hosts a number of large and smaller hydrocarbon provinces in platforms, rifts, foreland basins and the frontal parts of thrust belts. These hydrocarbon provinces are related to a wide range of source rocks occurring in Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic series. Source rocks are alternatively localized in prerift, syn-rift or passive-margin sequences, the age of which is highly variable. Moreover, syn-orogenic foreland basin sequences can contain important source-rocks and are frequently the locus of biogenic gas generation.