Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; one field day. Global urbanization together with historical demographic population shift to coastal areas, especially around Pacific Ocean's Ring of Fire, are placing increasingly large parts of this planet's human population at risk due to earthquakes, volcanos, and tsunamis. Global climate change combines with variety of geologic processes to create enhanced risks from catastrophic mass movements (e.g., landslides), hurricanes, floods, and fires. Exploration of physical processes behind natural disasters and discussion of how these natural events affect quality of human life. P/NP or letter grading.