The magma-rich East African Rift System (EARS) is a modern rift zone that provides an opportunity to constrain the existing relationship between magmatism and strain in continental rifts. Within the EARS, the broadly rifted Turkana Depression has been identified as an important locus of strain. This study focused on the magmatic events in the Turkana Depression that began in the Pliocene (ca. 4 Ma) as part of a pulse of basaltic activity known as the Stratoid Phase – the last pulse of basaltic magmatism before strain was accommodated in the axial region of the Turkana Basin. This basaltic pulse began with the eruption of the widespread Gombe Stratoid Series and is followed by less voluminous basaltic activity in the form of shield volcanoes emplaced on top of the Gombe lava flows. We find that the Gombe Stratoid Series is representative of a high flux event with a complex magma plumbing system that was produced by large degrees of decompression melting of the upper mantle during a broad stretching event in Turkana. In contrast, the waning of magma flux resulted in the development of shield volcanoes subsequent to the eruption of the Gombe Stratoid Series. The timing of magmatic activity of some of the shield volcanoes suggests that there was a migration of magmatism towards Lake Turkana. Unlike the Gombe Stratoid Series lavas, we find that shield-volcano lavas require a component derived from metasomatized enriched lithospheric mantle. The contribution of this enriched component is more pronounced towards the east, coincident with a younging of magmatism in this direction. We suggest that the presence of easily fusible material in the continental lithospheric mantle in the vicinity of the Lake Turkana Basin may result in the generation of localized lithospheric melt following the broad plate stretching event that yielded the Gombe Stratoid Series. Lithospheric melts will promote the focusing of formerly broadly distributed plate stretching into a more localized region where plate melting may have occurred. We suggest that melting of enriched lithospheric mantle may account for the modern localization of strain and migration of magmatism and rifting towards the currently active volcanic centers in Lake Turkana Basin.
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