TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 6216 SUBJECT: GRB 070318: absorption-line redshift DATE: 07/03/19 07:28:15 GMT FROM: Andreas O. Jaunsen at ITA/U Oslo A.O. Jaunsen (Univ. Oslo), J.P.U. Fynbo (DARK/NBI), M.I. Andersen (AIP) and P. Vreeswijk (ESO) report on behalf of a larger collaboration. We observed the field of GRB 070318 (Cummings et al., GCN 6210, La Parola et al, GCN 6214 and Page et al. GCN 6215) with the ESO/VLT UT2 equipped with FORS1. Observations started on 2007 Mar 19.008 UT and an 1800-s spectra was acquired with the 300V grism covering a wavelength range of 3500-8500A. We identify several absorption lines from MgII, MgI, FeII, MnII of which the MgII doublet 2796,2804 is the most prominent at a redshift of z=0.836. We thank the excellent support from the ESO/Paranal staff. [GCN OPS NOTE(19mar07): Per author's request, the phrase "several emission lines" was changed to "several absorption lines" and "MI" was changed to "Mg I".] [GCN OPS NOTE(23may08): This time I actually changed the text!]