The Southern Patagonian Ice Field (), located at the Southern Patagonic

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

between

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

and

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, is the world's second largest contiguous extrapolar ice field. It is the bigger of two remnant parts of the

Patagonian Ice Sheet The Patagonian Ice Sheet was a large elongated and narrow ice sheet centered in the southern Andes that existed during the Llanquihue glaciation. The ice sheet covered all of Chile south of Puerto Montt plus the western fringes of Argentine Pa ...

, which covered all of southern Chile during the last glacial period, locally called the Llanquihue glaciation.

Geography

The Southern Patagonian Ice Field extends from parallels 48° 15′ S to 51° 30′ S for approximately , and has an approximate area of , of which belong to

and belong to

. The ice mass feeds dozens of glaciers in the area, among which are the Upsala (), Viedma () and Perito Moreno () in the Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina, and the Pío XI Glacier or Bruggen Glacier (, the largest in area and longest in the southern hemisphere outside of Antarctica), O'Higgins (),

Grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

() and Tyndall () in Chile. The glaciers going to the west flow into the fjords of the Patagonian channels of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

; those going to the East flow into the Patagonian lakes Viedma and Argentino, and eventually, through the rivers ''de la Leona'' and Santa Cruz, to the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. An important part of the ice field is protected under different national parks, such as the Bernardo O'Higgins and Torres del Paine in Chile, and the aforementioned Los Glaciares in Argentina. There are two known volcanoes under the ice field:

Lautaro Lautaro (Anglicized as 'Levtaru') ( " swift hawk") (; 1534 – April 29, 1557) was a young Mapuche toqui known for leading the indigenous resistance against Spanish conquest in Chile and developing the tactics that would continue to be empl ...

and Viedma. Due to their inaccessibility they are among the least researched volcanoes in Chile and Argentina. In 1980, Chile planned Route 8 as a section of the Carretera Austral west of the ice field, which has not been built. Circo de los Altares is an important hiking place.

History

Exploration

Thorough explorations include the expeditions of Federico Reichert (1913–1914), Alberto de Agostini (1931), and Harold William Tilman and Jorge Quinteros (1955–1956), as well as Eric Shipton (1960–61). The first (North-South) crossing of the field was accomplished in 1998 by Pablo Besser, Mauricio Rojas, José Montt, and Rodrigo Fica. Nevertheless, some areas of the field remain largely unexplored. From the air, initial exploration was conducted in 1928–29 by Gunther Plüschow after whom a glacier is named. From April 1944 to April 1945, the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

conducted an aerial survey using the

Trimetrogon Trimetrogon is an aerial photographic survey method that involves the use of three cameras in one assembly. One camera is pointed directly downwards, and the other two are pointed to either side of the flight path at a 30° depression angle (60° ...

method at the request of the Chilean government.

Borderline

The boundary between Argentina and Chile in the area was established by the 1881 treaty and delimited in 1898 by the experts of both countries working in the demarcation of the border, and which differences led to the 1902 award, in which they agreed they did not have differences on the part of the border between Fitz Roy and Stokes. The award is established "to perpetuity" by both countries under British tutelage. The map published by the British Crown, as part of the documentation of the 1902 award, illustrates a clear demarcation line (from the Fitz Roy to the Stokes) to the east of the Southern Patagonian Ice Fields, leaving most of the territory in question in the Chilean side. The 1902 award considered that in that area the high peaks are water dividing and therefore there was no dispute. Both experts, Francisco Pascasio Moreno from Argentina and Diego Barros Arana from Chile, agreed on the border between Mount Fitz Roy and Stokes (nowadays Cervantes). Since 1898, the demarcation of the border in the ice field, between the two mountains, was defined on the next mountains and their natural continuity: Fitz Roy, Torre, Huemul, Campana, Agassiz, Heim, Mayo, and Stokes. In 1914, the Mariano Moreno range was visited by an expedition; however, Francisco Pascasio Moreno already knew of its existence. Argentina started to question the border, arguing that the border should be in the Mariano Moreno range. In 1994, the Laguna del Desierto dispute was solved which involved territory of the Ice Field; an international tribunal awarded almost the whole zone to Argentina. After a refused appeal in 1995, Chile accepted the award. Since then, Chile has had a small corridor to access Mount Fitz Roy, and the Marconi Pass was defined as an international border crossing point. The Southern Patagonian Ice Field section of the border is the last remaining land border issue between Chile and Argentina. On August 1, 1991, the governments of Chile and Argentina agreed on a borderline, but the agreement was never ratified by the Argentine legislature. Later, in 1998, both governments agreed to redraw the borderline between Mount Fitz Roy and Daudet. Section A of the agreement (between Cerro Murallón and Daudet) and a small part of B (from Fitz Roy to a point defined to the west) was drawn; however, they also agreed that section B (from Fitz Roy to Murallón) would wait until completion of a detailed 1:50,000 scale map of the area with further negotiations. To date, this one section remains the final non-concluded boundary section and has been an irritant in Argentina-Chile relations.

Controversies after the 1998 Agreement

In February 2006, Ricardo Lagos appeared in a photo with the head of the Air Force, General Osvaldo Sarabia, in the undemarcated area; this caused controversy with Argentina. In 2006, the Argentine ''Instituto Geográfico Militar'' (IGM) (today ''Instituto Geográfico Nacional'') edited a map without a note about the undefined border but showed the Argentine claims as the official borderline. After Chilean diplomatic protests, the Argentine government withdrew the map and urged Chile to expedite the demarcation of the international border according to the 1998 agreement. On August 24, 2006, the Argentine Undersecretary of Tourism stated that the maps used by the Secretariat of Tourism's website were official because they were approved by the National Geographic Institute of Argentina. In 2006, president of Chile Michelle Bachelet and president of Argentina Néstor Kirchner held a meeting over the cartographic controversy. Kirchner served as the governor of the Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003. In the maps published in Argentina, until today, the region continues to be shown without the white rectangle, as can be seen in a map of Santa Cruz on a website of an official Argentine agency. While in the official Chilean maps and most tourist maps, the rectangle is shown and it is clarified that the boundary is not demarcated according to the 1998 treaty. In 2018, Argentina made a National Ice Inventory in which are included some disputed glaciers. From September 20 to October 4 of the same year, the Argentine army traveled to into the area that is pending to be demarcated. This caused controversy mainly in Chile where the mayor of Villa O'Higgins denounced the fact as a "provocation" and made a call to the central government of Chile to reinforce the sovereignty in the zone. After the Argentine government published its inventory of glaciers including undefined territory, the Chilean Foreign Ministry informed that a claim note had already been sent denying the Argentine inventory. In 2021, there was a controversy since CONAF (from Chile) installed a dome in the Circo de los Altares, whose southern part is claimed by both countries. As of , the demarcation is still pending.

Gallery

File:Fjord 2.jpg, Fjord in Chile File:Lago y Glaciar Onelli.jpg, Lake and Glacier Onelli, Santa Cruz, Argentina File:Lago Bergues.jpg, Lake Bergues, Aysén, Chile File:Campo de Hielo Sur.jpg, Southern Patagonian Ice Field File:Perito Moreno Glacier 2023.jpg, Perito Moreno Glacier, Santa Cruz, Argentina File:Spegazzini Glacier 202301.jpg , Spegazzini Glacier, Argentina File: Glaciar Grey, Torres del Paine.jpg, Grey Glacier, Magallanes & Chilean Antarctica, Chile File:Bruggen glacier.jpg, Pío XI Glacier, Magallanes & Chilean Antarctica, Chile File:SantaCruz-Upsala-P2140135b.jpg, Upsala Glacier, Argentina-Chile File:Glaciar O'Higgins o Ventisquero Grande.JPG, O'Higgins Glacier, Aysén, Chile File:Circo de los Altares, parque nacional Bernardo O'Higgins, región de Magallanes y Antártica Chilena, Chile (5).jpg, Circo de los Altares File:Monte Fitz Roy 19Mar2018 SkySat.jpg, Chaltén Mountain Range Natural Site, Bernardo O'Higgins National Park, Magallanes & Chilean Antarctica, Chile File:Campo de Hielo Sur desde el Paso Marconi, Región de Aysén.JPG, Marconi Pass, Chile-Argentina

Notes

References

External links

Expedición Transpatagonia 2007, Campo de Hielo Patagónico Sur. Primera exploración histórica del Cordón del Gaviotín y del Lago Greve

by Louis Lliboutry, USGS
South Patagonian Icefield
NASA Earth Observatory, 2017. Includes new satellite imagery.
Subsecretario argentino de turismo dice que mapa de Campos de Hielo es oficial
"El Mercurio", Chile 29 August 2006

Clarín, Argentina 29 August 2006

Clarín, 30 August 1996 {{Authority control Glaciers of Aysén Region Glaciers of Argentina Landforms of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina Última Esperanza Province Landforms of Argentina Bodies of ice of Magallanes Region Ice fields of South America