How galaxies form: Mass assembly from chemical abundances in the era of
  large surveys
  The chemical abundances in the atmosphere of a star provide unique
information about the gas from which that star formed, and, modulo processes
that are not important for the vast majority of stars, such as mass transfer in
close binary systems, are conserved through a star's life. Correlations between
chemistry and kinematics have been used for decades to trace dynamical
evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy. I discuss how it should be possible to
refine and extend such analyses, provided planned large-scale deep imaging
surveys have matched spectroscopic surveys.
