TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 10495 SUBJECT: GRB 100316B: VLT/X-shooter redshift DATE: 10/03/16 11:04:59 GMT FROM: Paolo D'Avanzo at INAF-OAB S.D. Vergani (APC/Univ. Paris 7), P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), D. Malesani, J.P.U. Fynbo, J. Hjorth (DARK/NBI), A.J. Levan (Univ. Warwick), H. Flores (Paris Obs.), N.R. Tanvir (Univ. Leicester), P. Goldoni (APC/Univ. Paris 7 and SAp/CEA), L.A. Antonelli (INAF-OAR) report on behalf of a larger collaboration: We observed the optical afterglow of GRB 100316B (Baumgartner et al., GCN 10489; Afonso et al. GCN 10493; Haislip et al., GCN 10494) with the VLT equipped with the X-shooter spectrograph. Observations started on 2010 Mar 16 at 08:43 UT (~ 40 minutes after the GRB), for a total exposure time of 4x600 s. From the acquisition image, we estimate for the optical afterglow a magnitude of R = 18.2 +- 0.1 (calibrated against USNO-B1.0). In a preliminary analysis of the specta, we clearly detect the continuum in the UVB, VIS, and NIR arms, corresponding to the wavelength range 3200-24000 AA. We detect several absorption features, among these FeII(1608), AlII(1670), AlIII(1854), FeII(2344), FeII(2374), FeII(2382), MgII(2796, 2803) and MgI(2852) at a common redshift of z=1.180. The lack of Lyman forest lines down to ~3200 AA sets an upper limit to the redshift z<1.6. We also find evidence for FeII lines and MgII doublet from a strong intervening systems at z=1.063. We caution that the above analysis (particularly the wavelength solution) is preliminary. Reduction with updated calibrations is underway. We would like to thank the ESO staff for their kind assistance, in particular Linda Schmidtobreick, Christophe Martayan, Patricia Guajardo and Manuel Olivares.