Adam Sarafian (born March 26, 1986Adam Sarafian

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

. Accessed November 16, 2020. "Born March 28, 1986...Son of Sue and Steve Sarafian...Majoring in Geology.") is an American geologist who has advanced theories about the

origin of water on Earth The origin of water on Earth is the subject of a body of research in the fields of planetary science, astronomy, and astrobiology. Earth is unique among the rocky planets in the Solar System in that it is the only planet known to have oceans ...

. As a

pole vault Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, usually made from fiberglass or carbon fiber, as an aid to jump over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the Myc ...

er, he set the New Jersey state high school record and won the national championship in 2004.

Sport

A native of

Ocean Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey Ocean Township is a township located in east central Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located on the Jersey Shore. The township is a bedroom suburb of New York City. Ocean Township consists of three main unincorporated c ...

and student at

Ocean Township High School Ocean Township High School (OTHS) is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in the Oakhurst section of Ocean Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the lone secondary school in the Ocean Township ...

, Sarafian won the national championship in the pole vault with a jump measuring , which he accomplished after three jumps at the 2004 Adidas Outdoor Track and Field Championships in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...

. Sarafian won the pole vault competition at the

Golden West Invitational The Golden West Invitational (GWI) high school track & field all-star meet brings together top high school athletes from throughout the country and provides them with the very highest levels of competition. The GWI made its debut in 1960 and is held ...

in 2004 with a vault of . In May 2004, Sarafian had a jump of at the

Shore Conference The Shore Conference is an athletic conference of private and public high schools in the U.S. state of New Jersey, centered at the Northern Jersey Shore. All schools in this conference are located within Monmouth County, New Jersey, Monmouth County ...

track and field championship, which was the highest of any American that year and the 20th-highest jump by any jumper from the United States to that point. The jump also set the New Jersey state record, breaking a mark of that had been set in 1980. As of March 2020, Sarafian still holds the state high school record.

Science

A resident of

Long Branch, New Jersey Long Branch is a beachside City (New Jersey), city in Monmouth County, New Jersey, Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States census, 2010 U.S. census, the city's population was 30,719,< ...

, he chose geology as his major at the

, which he attended on an athletic scholarship. Sarafian has published a theory that has appeared in ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'' that the water on Earth is derived from asteroid impacts from

4 Vesta Vesta (minor-planet designation: 4 Vesta) is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of . It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta, the ...

shortly after the formation of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

during a time when the Earth was far smaller and hotter that it is now and some 135 million years before previous theories had believed the planet's water had arrived. Sarafian's theory contrasts with theories that had posited that the Earth's water was derived from comet impacts. Sarafian has noted that the chemical composition of water in comets is inconsistent with what is found on Earth and that the

deuterium Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two Stable isotope ratio, stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being Hydrogen atom, protium, or hydrogen-1). The atomic nucleus, nucleus of a deuterium ato ...

in water in Earth is consistent with the signatures found in asteroids from Vesta fragments that have struck Earth in recent centuries. Sarafian earned a PhD from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

.Howell, Elizabeth
"Meteorites brought water to Earth during the first two million years"

Phys.org Phys.org is an online science, research and technology news aggregator offering briefs from press releases and reports from news agencies (a form of journalism sometimes pejoratively called churnalism). The website also produces its own science jo ...

, January 18, 2018. Accessed November 16, 2020. "'We're looking at as many meteorite parent bodies as possible right now to figure out where they were in the early solar system and how much water they had,' says Adam Sarafian, a recent doctoral graduate in the department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarafian, Adam Living people American geologists American male pole vaulters Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Ocean Township High School alumni People from Long Branch, New Jersey People from Ocean Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey University of Georgia alumni Track and field athletes from New Jersey 1986 births