I liked this course a lot. It was my first 4000-level geology course that I took and while it challenged me, everything I learned was very useful.

In this course, we talked a lot about plate tectonics, volcanism, and major structures inside the Earth. We also talked a lot about the processes that cause certain formations in the Earth and did a lot of geodynamic modeling of such.

Dr. Thallner is a little bit tougher in terms of grading in this course since it is an upper-level geology course, but he gives opportunities for correcting your work on the written assignments. He's very helpful in office hours and gives constructive feedback on assignments.

The entirety of your grade in the class is based on the written assignments. Start on those plenty ahead of the due date and make sure you actually understand the content of the assignments and what you're doing in terms of the modeling because it's very useful information.

The course overall was very helpful. I've used quite a bit of the information in my other geology classes. I wouldn't say the course is too difficult, just make sure to stay on top of the lectures and assignments.

If you're a geology major, this is one of the required introductory courses you can choose from and has a lot of needed information in it for future geology courses, such as geologic processes, identifying rocks and minerals, etc. The content on natural hazards and the environment is also really interesting if you're into that kind of stuff.

Dr. Thallner is really nice. He's very straightforward with what he expects from you and is a fair grader.

There's one project in the course that I would suggest starting a little bit before near when it's due. It's not a hard project, but does take up some time.