In a freak accident, a prominent Scottish scientist has died in Antarctica after the snowmobile he was driving plunged 100 feet into a crevasse.
Dr Gordon Hamilton, 50, was killed after the vehicle plunged into the crevasse on Saturday, the BBC reported today.
His body was later recovered and the US Antarctic Program has launched an investigation into his death.
Hamilton was a University of Maine professor in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences, and a researcher with the Climate Change Institute.
He was part of a team camped in a heavily crevassed area known as the Shear Zone, around 40.23 km south of McMurdo Station, the largest of the three US research stations in Antarctica.
Colleagues paid tribute to the scientist following the tragedy.
Paul Mayewski, director of the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, said: "You knew that if Gordon came into the tent, that things were going to be fun and pleasant.
"They were repeating an activity that they'd done many times before, but it's a dangerous area and accidents happen. That's exactly what this was."
Hamilton spent much of his time in Greenland and Antarctica studying the movement and melting of glaciers and its effect on rising sea levels.
The National Science Foundation, which was funding Dr Hamilton's research, is arranging the return of his body to the United States.
Kelly K. Falkner, director of the division's polar programmes, said: "The death of one of our colleagues is a tragic reminder of the risks we all face, no matter how hard we work at mitigating those risks, in field research.
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