Articles | Volume 16, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-16-23-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.Revisiting the fall of the Veramin meteorite
Download
- Final revised paper (published on 18 Sep 2025)
- Preprint (discussion started on 27 Jun 2024)
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
| : Report abuse
-
RC1: 'Comment on hgss-2024-8', Hamed Pourkhorsandi, 06 Jul 2024
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Dan Holtstam, 09 Jul 2024
-
RC2: 'Comment on hgss-2024-8', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Sep 2024
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Dan Holtstam, 12 Sep 2024
Peer review completion
AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload
ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (11 Mar 2025) by Hisashi Hayakawa

AR by Dan Holtstam on behalf of the Authors (16 Apr 2025)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (29 Apr 2025) by Hisashi Hayakawa

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 May 2025) by Hisashi Hayakawa
RR by Jamshid Hassanzadeh (05 Jun 2025)

RR by Hamed Pourkhorsandi (17 Jun 2025)
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (17 Jun 2025) by Hisashi Hayakawa

AR by Dan Holtstam on behalf of the Authors (14 Jul 2025)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (29 Jul 2025) by Hisashi Hayakawa
RR by Jamshid Hassanzadeh (08 Aug 2025)
ED: Publish as is (09 Aug 2025) by Hisashi Hayakawa

AR by Dan Holtstam on behalf of the Authors (11 Aug 2025)
Manuscript
Peer-Review Report (Hamed Pourkhorsandi – IRD/GET – 06/07/2024)
Manuscript: HGSS-2024-8 | Title: The Vermanin meteorite – when and where did it fall? | Journal: History of Geo- and Space Sciences
Dear Editor,
The history of the Veramin (Varamin) meteorite fall and the various attempts by Western collectors and researchers to recover its pieces is one of the fascinating episodes in recent meteoritics history in Iran.
The authors use a variety of historical reports and scientific sources published in Farsi and other languages to introduce this meteorite fall. They discuss its debated fall date and location in a relatively short report, highlighting intriguing letters written by Aligholi Khan Mokhber od-Dowlah and the observations of Hedin. Based on different sources, they conclude that the fall occurred between February and March 1880.
This work is interesting, considering the topic and the historical sources studied. It provides additional information about the demographic situation of the fall regions, among other details. However, the authors fail to cite Hassanzadeh (1986), an important work on the Veramin meteorite published in Farsi in volume 15 (issue 1-2) of the Journal of Earth and Space Physics. This publication describes in detail the petrology, mineralogy, and fall history of Veramin. I believe the authors were not aware of this paper, likely because it is published in Farsi.
Hassanzadeh’s work is very important, because before his attempts in finding the meteorite, there was no trace of the meteorite anywhere. As a former professor of the Geology Department of the University of Tehran, he was the one who persuaded the staff at Golestan Palace to search for it... Which could not be done, without his efforts in communications with the overarching Ministry. Hassanzadeh (1986) is the work that covered the question of “when and where it fell”. An important credit that must be given.
In addition, he later published a technical paper on the petrology and geochemistry of mesosiderites partly based on his studies on Veramin (Hassanzadeh et al., 1990, Geochemical et Cosmochemica Acta, vol. 54, 3197-3208).
In addition to Hassanzadeh's work, the history of this meteorite was more recently described in an article for the general public (in Farsi) by Torabi (2010), published in issue 240 of Nojum, Iran's astronomy magazine. This article, primarily based on Hassanzadeh (1986), has inspired several online posts available as open-source material.
Hassanzadeh (1986) used a report from the book "Montazem Nasseri" by Sani od-Dowlah and concluded that the fall date was April 18, 1880, which generally agrees with the conclusions of the current paper. Both Hassanzadeh (1986) and Torabi (2010) discussed the fall location of the meteorite, also in general agreement with the conclusions of this paper.
Despite the quality of this manuscript, it reads more like an English translation of parts of Hassanzadeh (1986). I believe the authors were not aware of this due to the language barrier, however this cannot be a good argument in not citing it.
In conclusion, while this is an interesting report, considering the more comprehensive works previously published in other journals (albeit not in English), it cannot be considered an original work. Therefore, the decision on its publication is an editorial one.