Three-dimensional electrical conductivity in the mantle beneath the Payún Matrú Volcanic Field in the Andean back-arc of Argentina near 36.5◦S: Decapitation of a mantle plume by resurgent upper mantle shear during slab steepening?

Southern Mendoza and northern Neuquén Provinces, south of the Pampean Shallow Subduction region in western Argentina, are host to the <2 Myr Payunia Basaltic Province, which covers ∼39 500 km2 with primarily basaltic intraplate volcanism. This backarc igneous province can be explained by extension due to trench roll-back following steepening of a flat slab that existed in the middle to late Miocene. Magnetotelluric data collected at 37 sites from 67°W to 70°W and 35°S to 38°S are used to probe the source of the Payún Matrú basalts. These data, which require significantly 3-D structure, are inverted with a 3-D non-linear conjugate gradient algorithm that minimizes structure for a given data misfit. We identify two significant electrically conductive structures. One, called the SWAP (shallow western asthenospheric plume) approaches the surface beneath the Payún Matrú Caldera and the Trómen Volcano and dips westward towards the subducted Nazca slab. The second, called the DEEP (deep eastern plume) approaches the surface ∼100 km to the southeast of Payún Matrú and dips steeply east to ∼400 km depth while remaining above the subducted Nazca slab. We use a variety of model assessment techniques including forward modelling and constrained inversion to test the veracity of these features. We interpret the SWAP as the source of the