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With heights of 4-5 km, the topography of Rwenzori Mountains, a large horst of old crustal rocks located inside a young passive rift system, poses the question ''Why are the Rwenzori Mountains so high?''. The Cenozoic Western Rift branch of the East African Rift System is situated within the Late Proterozoic mobile belts between the Archean Tanzania Craton and Congo Craton. The special geological setting of the massif at a rift node encircled by the ends of the northern Western Rift segments of Lake Albert and Lake Edward suggests that the mechanism responsible for the high elevation of the Rwenzoris is related to the rifting process. Our hypothesis is based on the propagation of the rift tips, surrounding the stiff old lithosphere at Rwenzori region, thereby triggering the delamination of the cold and dense mantle lithosphere (ML) root by reducing viscosity and strength of the undermost lower crust. As a result, this unloading induces fast isostatic pop-up of the less dense crustal Rwenzori block. We term this RID-''rift induced delamination of Mantle Lithosphere''. The physical consistency of the RID hypothesis is tested numerically. Viscous flow of 2D models is approximated by a Finite Difference Method with markers in an Eulerian formulation. The equations of conservation of mass, momentum and energy are solved for a multi-component system. Based on laboratory data of appropriate rock samples, a temperature-, pressure-and stress-dependent rheology is assumed. Assuming a simple starting model with a locally heated ML, the ML block between the weakened zones becomes unstable and sinks into the asthenosphere, while the overlying continental crust rises up. Thus, RID seems to be a viable mechanism to explain geodynamically the extreme uplift. Important conditions are a thermal anomaly within the ML, a ductile lower crust with visco-plastic rheology allowing significant strength reduction and lateral density variations. The special situation of a two-sided rifting or offset rift segments to decouple the ML laterally from the surrounding continental lithosphere seems to be most decisive. Further support for the RID mechanism may come from additional crustal thickness and an extensive stress field. Some parameters, such as the excess temperature and yield stress, are very sensitive, small changes determine whether delamination takes place or not.

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[1] Continental rifting is accompanied by lithospheric thinning and decompressional melting. After extraction, melt is intruded at shallower depth thereby heating and weakening the lithosphere. In a feedback mechanism this weakening may assist rifting and melt production. A one-dimensional kinematic lithospheric thinning model is developed including decompressional melting and intrusional magma deposition. The intrusional heating effect is determined as a function of thinning rate and amount, melting parameters, potential temperature, and the depth range of emplacement. The temperature increases approximately proportionally to the square root of the thinning rate and to the square of the supersolidus potential temperature. Simple scaling laws are derived allowing predicting these effects and the surface heat flux for arbitrary scenarios. Two-dimensional thermomechanical extension models are carried out for a multicomponent (crustmantle) two-phase (melt-matrix) system with a rheology based on laboratory data including magmatic weakening. In good agreement with the 1-D kinematic models it is found that the lithosphere may heat up by several 100 K. This heating enhances viscous weakening by one order of magnitude or more. In a feedback mechanism rifting is dynamically enforced, leading to a significant increase of rift induced melt generation. Including the effect of lateral focusing of magma toward the rift axis the laws are applied to different segments of the East African Rift System. The amount of intrusional heating increases with maturity of the rift from O(10 K) to up to 200 K or 400 K at the Afar Rift depending on the depth range of the magmatic emplacement.