Scientific debate: Mantle plumes

Brennan Jordan

University of South Dakota

This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection and has been reviewed by 1 other review process

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This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Collection

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Scientific Accuracy
Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
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This page first made public: May 17, 2010

Summary

A structured format for a debate of the mantle plume hypothesis and alternative hypotheses with supporting materials.

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Context

Audience

Junior and senior level geology undergraduate students & early graduate students.

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

Students will need to have taken enough coursework in geology to have some comfort exploring diverse but related topics.

How the activity is situated in the course

Activity could come late in igneous portion of igneous and metamorphic petrology course, geophysics, geodynamics, or a graduate seminar.

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

Students will gain an appreciation of the controversy surrounding the mantle plume hypotheses. In pursuing this, students will add depth to knowledge of all fields that contribute to the debate (e.g., tomography, petrology, geochemistry, geodynamics, etc.).

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

The nature of science and critical evaluation of competing models.

Other skills goals for this activity

Oral presentation, writing, literature research, possible group work, and debate.

Description of the activity/assignment

After a preliminary discussion of hotspots (emphasizing the generic term melting anomalies), the mantle plume hypothesis, and alternative hypotheses, students are assigned roles for a debate on the mantle plume controversy. Students conduct an in-class debate, presenting arguments from opposite sides of the plume debate. After the debate students write a reflection paper on their perspective on the debate.

Determining whether students have met the goals

Prior to the instructor's introduction of the material students write a short in-class paper (five minutes, one paragraph) describing what they understand to be the cause of anomalous intra-plate volcanism (e.g., Hawaii). Comparison between the content of this paper and a post-exercise reflection paper will indicate knowledge gained, perspective on a significant scientific debate, and the nature of scientific debate in their discipline. Students' efforts in the debate can be evaluated by the instructor, peer-evaluation, and potentially self-evalutation.

More information about assessment tools and techniques.

Download teaching materials and tips

Activity Description/Assignment: Assignment with suggested readings (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 146kB Feb26 10)
Instructors Notes:
Other debate formats might be considered. If students enter the activity with a strong enough predisposition toward one side of the debate or another they could even be assigned to argue the side opposite their own perspective, developing the importance of understanding all sides of any issue.

The mantleplumes.org website http://www.mantleplumes.org is a well organized and well presented resource for this debate. The site contains substantially more pages from the plume-skeptic perspective, but the webmaster encourages contributions from all sides and there are some excellent pro-plume and neutral pages as well. Many of the pages offer concise arguments that students may find easier to follow, and they generally have good reference lists. There are also other resources including bibliographies of recent, foundation, and pro-plume and plume-skeptic papers. It is fair to point out to students that the site is disproportionally contributed to by the plume-skeptic community; but it could be pointed out that, for the purpose of the debate, this somewhat counterbalances the published literature which is predominantly pro-plume, and frequently does not acknowledge a debate.

Many of the recommended readings can be found online as pdfs by searching for a portion of the title in quotations. Many are available at mantleplumes.org. The GSA Special Paper 430 papers chapters are available there in manuscript form; the 388 papers are no longer available for free download at this site.

Chapters in 2007 GSA Special Paper 430: Plate, Plumes, and Planetary Processes include a feature that may be valuable in exploring this debate, comment and reply contributions at the end of each chapter. Some feature a good back-and-forth that helps establish the nature of the debate (e.g., the chapter on the Columbia River basalts by Hooper et al., p.635-656 with discussion p. 656-668)

Additional resources useful for in-class debates: http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/roleplaying/index.html
Solution Set:

Other Materials

The Plume Controversy--Getting Students Engaged with Science and the Conduct of Science: Brennan Jordan's presentation at the 2010 Deep Earth workshop.

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