As may be expected, I am indebted to a number of people.

Writing a textbook involves a major

commitment of time, which could only be accomplished with the collective effort of my
colleagues and students. The final
result has benefited immensely from these interactions, which have given
me guidance in correcting and improving the original work. I should start
by expressing my gratitude to the late Peter Worth, to Michele Jamiolkowski,
William Van Impe, Guy Houlsby, Victor de Mello, Mark Randolph, Martin
Fahey, Silvano Marchetti and Antonio Gens. I will be always indebted to
Michele Jamiolkowski for his encouragement and support in the early
stages of my career. When asking Silvano Marchetti for permission to use
some of his photographs and images, he sanctioned their use, adding that
‘our common interests really create a strong link and a sense of familiarity
in our community’. His response is a measure of the privilege I have enjoyed
in sharing views and experience with these remarkable scientists. I am also
very grateful to colleagues with whom I have been collaborating throughout these years: Hai-Sui
Yu, Barry Lehane, Luiz Guilherme de Mello,
Leandro Moura Costa Filho, Sandro Sandroni, Marcio Almeida, Fernando
Danzinger, Roberto Coutinho and Marcelo Rocha. Many thanks to my
dearest colleagues from the ISSMGE Technical Committee TC 16: Peter
Robertson, Paul Mayne, John Powell, Tom Lunne, Martin Fahey, Antonio
Viana da Fonseca, An-Bin Huang and Zbigniew Mlynarek.
I wish to thank the members of staff and students from Federal University
of Rio Grande do Sul. The group has grown around my dearest friend Prof.
Jarbas Milititsky and has developed into a stimulating environment for
working and researching. I am therefore indebted to my colleagues, and in
particular to Nilo C. Consoli and to my PhD students José Mário Soares,
Fernando Maria Mántaras, Pedro Domingos Marques Prietto, Edgar
Odebrecht, Leandro Spinelli, Luiz Artur Kratz de Oliveira, Gabriela Maluf
Medeiros, Maria Isabel Timm, Raymundo Carlos Machado Ferreira Filho,
Bianca de Oliveira Lobo, Jucélia Bedin and Francisco Dalla Rosa.