A Scottish scientist has discovered a one mile-deep rift valley the size of the Grand Canyon beneath the ice in West Antarctica.

Dr Robert Bingham, a glaciologist at Aberdeen University, made the remarkable find using radar equipment fitted to a snowmobile during fieldwork with the British Antarctic Survey three years ago.

However, it has taken until now for all the data to be assessed and for the scale of the discovery to be quantified.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is of particular scientific interest because it is losing ice faster than any other part of Antarctica, with some glaciers shrinking by more than one metre per year.

It is believed the huge gorge is contributing to ice loss from this part of the continent, and to the rise in global sea levels.

Experts from the University of Aberdeen and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) made the discovery below the Ferrigno Ice Stream, a region that has been visited only once previously, in 1961, and is remote even by Antarctic standards.

Their findings, reported in Nature magazine this week, reveal the ice-filled ancient rift basin is connected to the warming ocean, influencing ice flow and loss.

Dr Bingham, based at the university's School of Geosciences and lead author of the study, was accompanied by mountain guide Chris Griffiths as an Antarctic adviser.

They towed ice-penetrating radar behind a snowmobile for nine weeks across 1500 miles of ice, the distance from London to Athens.

Dr Bingham, whose fieldwork was funded by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), said: "Over the last 20 years we have used satellites to monitor ice losses from Antarctica, and we have witnessed consistent and substantial ice losses from around much of its coastline.

"For some of the glaciers, including the Ferrigno Ice Stream, the losses are especially pronounced, and, to understand why, we needed to acquire data about conditions beneath the ice surface."

He said he was surprised by what they found, adding: "We were driving across this relatively flat ice, and each night we would return to our tent and look at the data, and it was after one of the first traverses we looked at the data and could see the depth below the ice just dropping way.

"What we found is that lying beneath the ice there is a large valley, parts of which are approximately a mile deeper than the surrounding landscape."

He said: "If you stripped away all of the ice here today, you'd see a feature every bit as dramatic as the huge rift valleys you see in Africa, and in size as significant as the Grand Canyon."

Dr Bingham insisted that, despite discovering the valley, he would not be seeking to have it called after him.

"That would be bad form," he said.

Professor David Vaughan, from the British Antarctic Survey, said: "Thinning ice in West Antarctica is currently contributing nearly 10% of global sea level rises.

"It's important to understand this hotspot of change so we can make more accurate predictions for future sea level rises."