Gordon Hamilton, a prominent climate scientist who studied glaciers and their impact on sea levels in a warming climate, died on Saturday in Antarctica when the snowmobile he was riding plunged into a 100-foot-deep crevasse. He was 50.

The National Science Foundation, which was funding his research, reported the death. The episode is under investigation, officials said.

Dr. Hamilton died on White Island in the continent’s Ross Archipelago, according to the University of Maine, in Orono, where he was an associate research professor in the glaciology group at the Climate Change Institute.