Astronomy Colloquium

  One of the primary avenues for understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies is through studying their stellar populations.  A new generation of population synthesis tools that we have been developing are now capable of measuring an unprecedented amount of information from high quality spectra of galaxies.  In this talk I will present results from an ongoing program aimed at measuring the ages and detailed elemental abundance patterns of early-type galaxies over the interval 0<z<1.  Constraints on the abundances of the alpha, iron peak, and neutron capture elements offer the promise of reconstructing the detailed star formation histories of these now dormant galaxies.  By measuring the evolution of these quantities through cosmic time we are gaining fresh insights into the assembly histories of galaxies.  The techniques we are developing will enable `extragalactic chemical tagging' and, more generally, will open up the low resolution universe for detailed study.