diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,4 +1,86 @@
-opm-autodiff
-============
+Open Porous Media Automatic Differentiation Library
+===================================================
 
-Automatic differentiation utilities and simulators using the technique.
+
+CONTENT
+-------
+
+opm-autodiff contains a small library for automatic differentiation
+built on the Eigen linear algebra package. It also contains some
+experimental solver and simulator prototypes demonstrating how it can
+be used. The most important parts are:
+
+* AutoDiffBlock.hpp (class for AD on vectorized data with sparse jacobians)
+* AutoDiffHelpers.hpp (various utilities to simplify writing solvers)
+* sim_fibo_ad.cpp (prototype fully implicit black-oil simulator)
+
+LICENSE
+-------
+
+The library is distributed under the GNU General Public License,
+version 3 or later (GPLv3+).
+
+
+PLATFORMS
+---------
+
+The opm-autodiff module is designed to run on Linux platforms. It is
+also regularly run on Mac OS X. No efforts have been made to ensure
+that the code will compile and run on windows platforms.
+
+
+REQUIREMENTS
+------------
+
+opm-autodiff requires opm-core, and all its requirements (see
+opm-core/README). In addition, opm-autodiff requires Eigen, version
+3.1 (has not been tested with later versions).
+
+
+DOWNLOADING
+-----------
+
+For a read-only download:
+git clone git://github.com/OPM/opm-autodiff.git
+
+If you want to contribute, fork OPM/opm-autodiff on github.
+
+
+BUILDING
+--------
+
+See build instructions in opm-core/README, or at
+http://opm-project.org/download.php.
+
+
+DOCUMENTATION
+-------------
+
+Efforts have been made to document the code with Doxygen.
+In order to build the documentation, enter the command
+
+ make doc
+
+in the topmost directory. The class AutoDiffBlock is the most
+important and most well-documented.
+
+
+REPORTING ISSUES
+----------------
+
+Issues can be reported in the Git issue tracker online at:
+
+    http://github.com/OPM/opm-autodiff/issues
+
+To help diagnose build errors, please provide a link to a build log together
+with the issue description.
+
+You can capture such a log from the build using the `script' utility, e.g.:
+
+    LOGFILE=$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M-)build.log ;
+	cmake -E cmake_echo_color --cyan --bold "Log file: $LOGFILE" ;
+    script -q $LOGFILE -c 'cmake ../opm-core -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug' &&
+    script -q $LOGFILE -a -c 'ionice nice make -j 4 -l 3' ||
+    cat CMakeCache.txt CMakeFiles/CMake*.log >> $LOGFILE
+
+The resulting file can be uploaded to for instance gist.github.com.