Dartmouth Events

Abstract: Galactic chemical evolution will be gradually unveiled in coming years thanks to large-sample stellar surveys such as Gaia-ESO, Galah, and APOGEE.  Sophisticated analytical tools are being developed to extract chemical compositions of millions of stars on reasonable human timescales.  But these abundance surveys must be anchored in very detailed and accurate studies of individual stars.  In particular, we must understand just what early Galactic nucleosynthesis was able to accomplish by careful study of very metal-poor stars.  In this talk I will review the efforts of our group to provide accurate abundances in low metallicity stars of two sets of important elements:  the neutron-capture group (Z > 30) and the Fe-peak group (Z = 21-30).  Some examples will illuminate how much we know, and how much we know that ain't really so.