Adrian Melott

Adrian Lewis Melott (born January 7, 1947) is an American physicist. He is one of the pioneers of using large-scale computing to investigate the formation of large-scale structure in a Universe dominated by dark matter. He later turned his attention to an area he calls "astrobiophysics", examining a variety of ways that external events in our galaxy may have influenced the course of life on Earth, including analysis of gamma-ray burst events.

He is married to Gillian, and has two sons, Christopher and Jesse.

Research

His work in dark matter focused on the formation of what has come to be called the "cosmic web" from Zeldovich pancakes. In 1983, before the existence of such structure was generally accepted, he and collaborators predicted its existence in a Universe dominated by cold dark matter. Later in the 80's, he worked with J. Richard Gott on the topology of large-scale structure, then with Sergei Shandarin on the merging of hierarchical clustering models with the Zel'dovich pancake picture as a description of large-scale structure.

Beginning in 2003, he made an abrupt transition into a new area which began by examining the effects the radiation from a gamma-ray burst (GRB) would have upon the Earth, and investigating a possible connection between a GRB and the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction. Later, he investigated the Late Devonian Mass Extinction and its potential association with cataclysmic supernovae, the effects of an end-Pliocene supernova on marine megafauna and on human evolution, the controversial and disputed Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, the effects of the 774-775 carbon-14 spike and its association with a solar flare, and the Tunguska event. He is also a member of the Comet Research Group, which is best known for sponsoring a collaboration with biblical archaeologists who believe they have discovered the ancient city of Sodom at Tell el-Hammam, Jordan, and that it was destroyed by a comet. On February 15, 2023, the following editor's note was posted on this group's paper, "Readers are alerted that concerns raised about the data presented and the conclusions of this article are being considered by the Editors. A further editorial response will follow the resolution of these issues." He showed that 27 and 62 million-year oscillations in fossil biodiversity cut across a variety of data sets and has found clues to their cause, which, however, is still an unsolved problem.

Melott is a member of the Paleontological Society. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society "For groundbreaking studies of the origin and evolution of cosmic structure" in 1996, and received its Joseph A. Burton Forum Award for his educational work in 2002. In 2007, he was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science "For distinguished contributions to cosmological large-scale structure, for organizing public support for teaching evolution, and for interdisciplinary research on astrophysical impacts on the biosphere."