This online assignment takes the students on a virtual field trip to Giant's Causeway in northern Ireland. It begins with a brief video of the geological site, includes some questions relevant to the history of the neptunist and plutonist debate, and asks students to examine online petrographic images to investigate the composition of basalt and examine TAS diagrams so as to understand how fine-grained igneous rocks are classified.
This exercise may be useful for instructors trying to teach a lab course online inasmuch as it provides the context and opportunity for studying the composition of basalts.
Basic understanding of the main types of igneous rocks.
This is a stand-alone exercise.
1 hour
My goal with this exercise is to replace as much as possible the need to use a petrographic microscope for the study of basalt.
The higher order thinking skill required for this exercise is the synthesis of ideas related to the generation of extrusive igneous rocks.
Here is the exercise in a pdf format.
Virtual field trip to Giant's Causeway and formation of basalt (Acrobat (PDF) 66kB Mar29 20)
Access to the internet
Erik Haroldson
Jan, 2021
14625:46149
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