Bedrock response to Llanquihue Holocene and present-day glaciation in southernmost South America

[ 1] Modern geodetic techniques, such as precise Global Positioning System ( GPS) measurements and high resolution space gravity mapping, make it possible to measure the present-day rate of viscoelastic gravitational Earth response to present and past glacier mass change. Patagonia is a rapidly evolving glacial environment. Over the past decade, the local rate of surface stress unloading may be the largest anywhere on the planet. We compute the present-day land uplift rate that could be observed using bedrock GPS measurements. The Little Ice Age ( LIA) of the past half millennium generates large vertical rates since the underlying mantle material is likely to have anomalously low viscosity owing to late-Neogene ridge subduction.