the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 27 Jun 2024
The Veramin meteorite – when and where did it fall?
Abstract. The Veramin meteorite, believed to have fallen in 1880, near Varamin, Tehran province, Iran (then Persia), is one of few witnessed falls of a mesosiderite, a rare type of stony-iron meteorite. However, historical records show inconsistencies regarding the fall, and consequently, the naming of the meteorite. The earliest printed account, by Ferdinand Dietzsch in 1880, reported that the meteorite fell near the village ‘Karand’ east of Tehran, with a thunder-like sound. The Shah had ordered an examination of it. Later, meteoricist Aristides Brezina named it "Veramin". Further historical accounts include descriptions by Iranian official Mohamad Hasan Khan Sani’ od-Dowlah and the explorer Sven Hedin. A key document is Persian text on a cardboard, preserved with the main meteorite mass in Tehran’s Golestan Palace. Members of the nomadic Shahsevan-e Baghdadi tribal confederacy, who had winter settlements west of Tehran, are reported as eyewitnesses. The geologist Henry A. Ward provided a detailed description in 1901, confirming the meteorite's composition and securing a larger mass for analysis and distribution to museums. The exact location and date of the fall remain uncertain due to imprecise and conflicting sources. The most likely impact field is the Booghin-Eshtehard area west of Tehran, with the event happening sometime in the period February to April 1880. The original mentioning of “Karand” is a confusion with Zarand(ieh), 70 km to the west of Varamin.
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RC1: 'Comment on hgss-2024-8', Hamed Pourkhorsandi, 06 Jul 2024
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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.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2024-8-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Dan Holtstam, 09 Jul 2024
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Thank you ever so much for your comments, pointing to relevant sources that we were unaware of (not findable in international literature databases)!
We suggest to add to the manuscript the following changes:
1 -Add to the end of the line 149: Torabi (2010), in his report from the Golestan palace on the Veramin meteorite, based on Hassanzadeh (1986), has pointed to the location of the meteorite impact being between Eshtehard and Booghin.
2 -Add to line 183, after Hassanzadeh: 1986 and
3 -Add to the line 160, after unknown: as Hassanzadeh (1986) has stated, “… the exact place of impact seems to be doubtful.”
4 - Add after line 240:
Hassanzadeh, J.: Varamin (Veramin) meteorite: history, characteristics, and the story of its recovery again [in Persian]. Physics of Earth and Space, 15, 61-72, 1986.
5 -Add after line 253:
Torabi, M. J.: The most important meteorites of Iran [in Persian]. Nojum Magazine, 19, 54-65, 2010.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2024-8-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Dan Holtstam, 09 Jul 2024
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RC2: 'Comment on hgss-2024-8', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Sep 2024
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I have read with great interest the manuscript entitled "The Veramin meteorite - when and where did it fall?" which narrates the documents and known facts about the Veramin meteorite. I think that the manuscript is interesting for HGSS readers since most of the documents about this manuscript are not available in English, which is nowadays the general language for the scientific community. Therefore, I think that it could be accepted by the HGSS editors when the authors make some changes to this initial version of the manuscript.
First of all, knowing that there is little originality in this manuscript, it is very important to give sufficient credit and merit to the scientists who have previously published about this meteorite (especially, to those scientists who published their works in languages other than English). In that sense, I think that referee 1 makes important comments that should be especially taken into account.Secondly, since the authors are after all conducting a review of what is known about this meteorite, I suggest that they change the title emphasizing this. For example, the title could be: "The Veramin meteorite: a short review". Thus, readers would clearly recognize the purpose and content of the work.
Third, there are some aspects of the manuscript's editing that could be significantly improved. For example, the figure captions for Figures 1, 2, and 5 should be more self-explanatory. The map shown in Figure 5 could also be improved, by including latitude/longitude scales or showing Iran's position in a broader geographic context.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2024-8-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Dan Holtstam, 12 Sep 2024
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Many thanks for the review and constructive recommendations, which we agree with! The title of the paper could be revised to “When and where did the Veramin meteorite fell? – a review”. We also certainly agree to expand figure texts and revise the map in the final version of the paper.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2024-8-AC2
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Dan Holtstam, 12 Sep 2024
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