TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 13493 SUBJECT: VLT/FORS2 redshift of GRB120716A DATE: 12/07/19 08:40:51 GMT FROM: Arne Rau at MPE Jochen Greiner, Arne Rau, Patricia Schady (all MPE), Ivo Saviane (ESO), and Brad Cenko ( UC Berkeley) report on behalf of a larger collaboration. We observed the afterglow candidate of GRB 120716A (Hurley et al., GCN 13454; Cenko et al. GCN 13489; Xu et al, GCN 13490; Schady et al. CGN 13492) with the ESO VLT equipped with the FORS2 spectrograph. Observations with the 600B grism, covering a spectral range of 350-610nm) started at ~06:54 UT on July 19th 2012 (~58.2 hr after the gamma-ray trigger) and lasted for ~ 1.5hr. The spectrum shows a prominent, broad absorption trough centered at ~4250A, interpreted as Lyman-alpha, together with numerous metal lines (SiII, OI, SiIV, CIV) at longer wavelength. We find a common redshift of these features of z=2.48.