Convective removal of continental lithospheric roots has been postulated to be the primary mechanism of recycling lithospheric mass into the asthenosphere under large plateaux such as the Altiplano-Puna in the central Andes. Convective instabilities are especially likely to develop where there is extensive intermediate arc-like magmatism in the upper plate, as the residual masses complementing these magmatic products are typically denser than the underlying mantle. Mafi c volcanic rocks erupted on the central Andean Altiplano-Puna plateau during the past 25 m.y. contain evidence of this process. Here we use equilibration temperatures, age data, and geochemical constraints--primarily based on transition metals--to show that the most important source materials by mass for this mantle-derived magmatism are pyroxenites from the lower parts of the lithosphere, with only minor contributions from mantle peridotite. Pyroxenites are denser than typical upper mantle whether they are garnet bearing or not, and are therefore likely to contribute to destabilizing parts of the continental lithosphere. The pattern of melting is consistent with the process of foundering/dripping of small-scale (<50 km diameter) density anomalies in the lithosphere, where mafi c volcanic fi elds on the plateau represent the manifestations of individual drips.

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Metasedimentary rocks constitute an

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Investigations of lithospheric foundering and related magmatism have long focused on the central Andes, where there are postulated links between the eruption of mantle-derived lavas and periodic loss of the lower lithosphere. Whole-rock elemental and Nd-Sr-Pb isotopic results from a suite of late Miocene-Quaternary mafi c lavas erupted onto the Puna Plateau clarify the relationship between this hypothesized process and lava composition. Zinc and Fe provide a critical perspective because they are partitioned differently during the melting of asthenospheric and lithospheric mantle. All Puna lavas have Zn/Fe T (×10 4) values >13, which requires clinopyroxene and perhaps garnet to be the dominant phase(s) in the melt source; this precludes a melt source of typical mantle asthenosphere. This result is contrary to classic models of delamination magmatism that suggest asthenospheric peridotite melts to generate these lavas. Pyroxenite (±garnet)-bearing lithospheric materials in the central Andes are likely common and heterogeneous in age, volatile content, and mineralogical composition, and if they are the melt source, this can explain the diversity in the elemental (La/Yb = 11-45; La/Ta = 22-40) and isotopic (87 Sr/ 86 Sr = 0.7055-0.7080; ε Nd =-1 to −7) compositions of these mafi c magmas (MgO > 8%, Mg number > 60). We propose that compositionally diverse, gravitationally unstable pyroxenites both drive "dripping" of the lower lithosphere and are the source of the resulting melt. We also postulate that mantle-derived lavas erupted on the Puna Plateau were generated during localized foundering and melting of these materials. The cumulative effect of these drip events is a modern Puna Plateau with geodynamic anomalies including thin lithosphere and anomalously high surface elevation.