Goresky-Pardon lifts of Chern classes and associated Tate extensions

Let X be an irreducible complex variety, S a stratification of X and F a holomorphic vector bundle on the open statum. We give geometric conditions on S and F that produce a natural extension of the k-th Chern class F as a class in the complex cohomology of X of Hodge level at least k. When X is the Baily-Borel compactification of a locally symmetric variety with its stratification by boundary components, and F an automorphic bundle on its interior, then this recovers and refines a theorem of Goresky-Pardon. In passing we define a class of simplicial resolutions of the Baily-Borel compactification that can be used to define its mixed Hodge structure. Finally, we use the Beilinson regulator for the rationals to show that when X is the Satake (=Baily-Borel) compactification of A_g and F the Hodge bundle (with g large compared to k), the Goresky-Pardon k-th Chern class extension has nonzero imaginary part and gives rise to a basic Tate extension. This also shows that the lifts of Chern classes constructed by Goresky and Pardon need not be real and thus answers (negatively) a question asked by these authors.