The extensive Quaternary volcanism in the Payenia volcanic province, Mendoza, Argentina, is investigated in this study by major and trace element analyses, Sr, Nd, Hf and Pb-isotopic analyses and Zr-Hf isotope dilution data on samples from almost the entire province. The samples are mainly primitive basalts and trachybasalts but also more evolved samples from the retroarc region and the larger volcanoes Payún Matrú and Payún Liso are presented. The samples cover a broad range of compositions from intraplate lavas similar to ocean island basalts to arc andesites. A common feature found in basalts from all the studied volcanic fields in Payenia is signs of lower crustal contamination indicating assimilation of, in some cases, large amounts of trace element depleted, mafic, plagioclase-bearing rocks.
The northern Payenia is dominated by backarc basalts erupted between late Pliocene to late Pleistocene times. These basalts mark the end of a period of shallow subduction of the Nazca slab beneath the Payenia province and volcanism in the Nevado volcanic field apparently followed the downwarping slab in a north-northwest direction ending in the Northern Segment. The northern Payenia basalts are isotopically similar to the Andean Southern Volcanic Zone arc rocks and their mantle source possibly resembled the source of South Atlantic N-MORB prior to addition of fluids and melts from the subduction channel. However, it must have been more enriched than the estimates of depleted upper mantle from the literature. The Nevado basalts have been modelled by 4-10 % melting of a primitive mantle added 1-5 % upper continental crust.
In the southern Payenia province, intraplate basalts dominate. The samples from the Payún Matrú and Río Colorado volcanic fields are apparently unaffected by the subducting slab and have a geochemistry resembling that of EM1 ocean island basalts. The major element compositions of the most primitive basalts from this region indicate the presence of pyroxenite or eclogite lithologies in their mantle source but also peridotite which mainly melts beneath the western backarc area where the lithosphere is thinnest and possibly in areas of elevated mantle temperatures. The pyroxenite melts formed at deeper levels react with the surrounding peridotite and thereby changes composition leading to eruption of melts which experienced variable degrees of melt-peridotite interaction. This can presumably explain the existence of two elementally distinct magma types with the exact same isotopic composition.