Neither Iranian nor US authorities have officially disclosed the precise coordinates of the FFEP site. Nevertheless, high-resolution satellite imagery (Figure 1) captured by commercial providers, such as Vantor (formerly Maxar Technologies), has been published by media outlets, military think tanks and photo stock sites following the strike.

By comparing the shape of road, ridge lines, a few ground facilities and other topographic features visible in the images with publicly available digital maps, such as Google Maps, the strike location, i.e. the facility’s location, can be inferred with reasonable confidence. The author independently confirmed it using commercially acquired Maxar imagery. This confirmation places the facility approximately 30 km north-northeast of the centre of Qom, at roughly 34.885°N, 50.999°E (truncated to 3 decimal places). The correspondence between satellite imagery and Google Maps is clear. The facility is also identifiable on Google Maps, where it appears with a location marker.

It is also worth noting that while Western media have generally referred to the site as “Fordow,” the town of Fordow itself lies south of Qom. The enrichment plant commonly labelled as Fordow is therefore more accurately described as being located north of Qom rather than at Fordow proper.

Geologically, the Qom area is situated within a northwest–southeast-trending tectonic zone affected by the Alpine-Himalayan orogeny. This region includes the Urumieh–Dokhtar magmatic arc (UDMA), characterised by magmatic intrusions, and adjacent sedimentary basins with carbonate sequences.

More specifically, the area surrounding FFEP lies in the Saveh–Qom area within the Western part of the Central Domain (also known as the Central Basin). The local stratigraphy consists primarily of the Qom Formation—dominated by carbonate rocks, such as marl—along with the overlying and underlying Upper and Lower Red Formations, which consist mainly of hematitic reddish sandstone and siltstone. These units were deposited during the Oligocene to Neogene. To the west, Eocene igneous rocks associated with the UDMA are also distributed (Morley et al., 2009).

Igneous rocks, such as plutonic and volcanic rocks, are generally classified as hard rocks. By contrast, sedimentary rocks, including limy fine-grained carbonate like marl, exhibit a wide range of mechanical properties depending on age, cementation, compaction, diagenesis, and weathering.

The US Air Force (n.d.) describes the GBU-57 (MOP) as “approximately 20.5 feet long, with a 31.5-inch diameter and a total weight of slightly less than 30,000 pounds. The weapon will carry over 5,300 pounds of explosive material [...]. It is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet underground before exploding.”

According to the US Congressional Record (2005, p. S8727), Senator Feinstein cited the manufacturer’s description of the MOP, which was then under development: “It can burrow 60 metres in the ground through 5,000 psi—pounds per square inch—of reinforced concrete. It will burrow 8 metres into the ground through 10,000 psi reinforced concrete.”

This appears to be the earliest readily accessible official public reference to these material-specific penetration figures.

Military-information websites and think tanks, including GlobalSecurity.org (n.d.), have repeated the same penetration figures—typically 60 metres (200 feet) through 5,000 psi and 8 metres (25 feet) through 10,000 psi reinforced concrete—without identifying their underlying technical source. Although the figures date from the weapon’s development phase and its actual performance remains officially undisclosed, 60 metres (200 feet) is an extraordinary claim compared with the reported performance of earlier penetrators.

According to Coe and Schmitt (1997), the 5,000-pound-class GBU-28, the next largest penetrator below the GBU-57, “has the ability to penetrate 20 feet of concrete or 100 feet of dirt.” No strength values, such as compressive strength in psi, are specified for either material. The US Air Force Hill Air Force Base (2007) and the National Research Council (2005) report that 2,000-pound-class penetrators, such as BLU-109 and BLU-116, can penetrate approximately 6 feet to more than 12 feet of reinforced concrete.

The GBU-57 weighs approximately six to fifteen times as much as these weapons, but penetration does not scale linearly with mass. Higher impact velocity can increase penetration, but the strength of a penetrator casing limits the impact velocity it can survive. Nelson (2002) argued that even a penetrator made from the strongest steel would limit “the maximum possible penetration depth into reinforced concrete to about four times the missile length.”

Moreover, if Feinstein’s statement is taken at face value, the 60 metres (200 feet) figure was conditional from the development phase on a target compressive strength of 5,000 psi.

GlobalSecurity.org (n.d.) itself cautions that the figures seem suspiciously high and may in fact be first in feet, not metres. No evidence substantiating this proposed explanation has been identified. It should be emphasised, however, that such assessments have not been peer-reviewed, are not based on Iran’s site-specific geology, and depend on the unverified assumption that metres and feet were confused.

In European-language media coverage obtained through LexisNexis news search, twenty original articles published between October 2024 and September 2025 cited penetration depths of 60 metres or 200 feet. Among these, the Associated Press (Rising, 2025, 22 June) described the weapon as penetrating “about 200 feet (61 metres) below the surface before exploding,” with subscriber outlets repeating this verbatim and numerous other print and online media adopting similar phrasing.

The New York Times (Ismay, 2024, 17 October) reported the weapon as capable of penetrating “up to 200 feet underground before exploding,” and The Daily Telegraph (Blomfield, 2025, 23 June, pp. 2–3) described it as boring “through up to 200 feet of rock,” both adding a sense of maximum capacity to their coverage. Some outlets also used formulations such as “over 200 feet” or “more than 200 feet.”

The Irish Times (2025, 23 June, p. 7) made no reference to specific penetration depths but noted that the figures were based on reinforced concrete resistant to 5,000 psi. BBC Afrique (Mackintosh, 2025, 23 June) introduced some range into its reporting, citing the weapon as capable of penetrating approximately 18 metres (60 feet) of concrete or 61 metre (200 feet) of soil before detonating. With respect to concrete, this estimate is consistent with the hypothesis that feet and metres were confused. The most detailed specifications appeared in a supplemental box in Irish Daily Mail (Nicol, 2025, 23 June, pp. 4–5), which listed 200 feet (61 metres) of high-strength concrete, 26 feet (8 metres) of extreme-strength concrete, and 131 feet (40 metres) of moderately hard rock. None of these accounts, however, attempted to verify such figures against the actual geological conditions at the site.

A similar pattern appeared in Japanese media coverage. Over a comparable period, a search of G-Search and Nikkei Telecom, two comprehensive Japanese databases of newspaper and broadcast content, identified 47 articles describing the GBU-57 as capable of penetrating 60 metres (200 feet) “underground,” “below the surface,” or “into the ground” (author’s translations). None of these accounts noted that this figure applies to 5,000 psi reinforced concrete, nor that actual penetration depth in natural rock could be considerably lower. Exceptionally, Nikkei (Awashima et al., 2025, 23 June) reported that it depended on the hardness of the ground. Of the 47 articles identified, only a handful noted that 60 metres (200 feet) represents a maximum capacity.

Across all the media reports examined, no report verified the consistency of these claims with actual geological conditions using publicly available scientific data. Although some independent online media reports mentioned a carbonate-dominant geology (e.g. Gillard, 2025), these references describe broad regional trends rather than site-specific conditions. As described above, the surface geology of the Qom area is dominated not only by the Qom Formation but also by the Upper Red Formation. Consequently, limestone and marl do not always cover the surface around the FFEP site.

The MOP strike may have penetrated and disrupted the bedrock at the FFEP site to a depth on the order of 8 metres (25 feet). Even assuming that the “double tap” strikes (Landay, 2025)—an initial six MOPs followed by six more—were executed with precision, the combined penetration depth of the first and second strikes may have remained insufficient to reach facilities located at depths of approximately 80–90 metres (260–300 feet), making direct structural destruction unlikely.

If substantial internal damage, such as the collapse of underground chambers, did occur, this would more plausibly be attributed not solely to the penetration capability of the MOP itself but to pre-existing structural weaknesses within the rock mass. These may include naturally developed fractures formed over geological timescales, or previously unmapped minor faults potentially associated with known fault systems within the Central Domain (Morley et al., 2009). Such features could have been further propagated or activated by the vibrational effects of the strikes.

Although Jalali et al. (2017) indicate that parts of the Qom Formation include relatively weak material, it is unlikely that the specific site selected for the facility would deviate significantly from regional averages in a manner that would substantially facilitate large-scale structural collapse. The construction of underground facilities in competent rock is intended not only to reduce detectability from satellite observation but also to exploit the protective properties of the surrounding geological barrier against aerial bombardment.

As noted in the statement by Grossi (IAEA, 2025a), “Given [...] the extreme vibration-sensitive nature of centrifuges, very significant damage is expected to have occurred.” Even in the absence of complete structural collapse, it is therefore plausible that the strikes produced a degree of functional disruption.

At the same time, commercial satellite imagery acquired by Maxar Technologies on 19 June 2025 and 20 June 2025, immediately prior to the strikes, recorded what was described as “unusual activity [...] with a long line of vehicles waiting outside an entrance of the facility” (Landay, 2025). While the nature of this activity remains uncertain, it could have contributed to the preservation of uranium-enrichment capabilities. If the underground chambers of the FFEP remain structurally intact, the possibility of their reuse for a range of future operations cannot be excluded.

The strikes may also have provided the Iranian side with empirical information regarding the penetration performance of the MOP under specific geological conditions. Iran, situated within the Alpine–Himalayan orogenic belt and characterised by widespread hard rock formations, has historically relied on underground construction for military and nuclear infrastructure. The observed outcomes of this strike may therefore inform future site selection and design strategies for underground facilities.

It is possible that the US planners fully accounted for the challenging geological conditions described above. If so, this can explain why the US double tap strikes appear to have focused on existing openings—most notably the ventilation shafts described at the Pentagon briefing (DoD, 2025b)—rather than attempting to directly collapse the deepest chambers. Moreover, any such assessment necessarily remains provisional; definitive conclusions about the actual extent of underground damage will require the eventual release of classified information or on-site inspection.

What can be evaluated with greater confidence is the quality of media reporting. News coverage understandably prioritises speed, and a certain degree of simplification is inevitable. As the media survey described above demonstrates, however, many outlets repeatedly cited the figure of “60 metres” or “200 feet” of penetration, without clarifying the material and strength conditions underlying that figure. Without that qualification, the reporting does not permit an assessment of whether the Iranian rock is stronger than the cited reference material.

More generally, the uncritical circulation of numerical claims in media reporting can hinder accurate military analysis, distort diplomatic decision-making, and influence public opinion in unintended ways. It may also contribute to the exaggeration of one side’s capabilities beyond their actual limits, thereby creating opportunities for exploitation in information warfare and propaganda.

In this context, it is worth asking whether the widespread repetition of the “200-foot” figure had any influence on political decision-making or international dynamics in the various phases leading up to early 2026. If the underlying assumptions of this figure had been more widely understood, different responses might have emerged in some contexts.

It is therefore evident that independent actors, including those in journalism, have a responsibility to present objective data and to critically examine the basis of frequently cited numerical claims. Continuous efforts at fact-checking and verification are essential, particularly when such figures have the potential to shape broader strategic and political perceptions.