Program: GS-2010A-Q-52

Star cluster populations reflect the star-formation history (SFH) of their parent galaxy. Owing to their high brightness they can be used to determine the SFH of galaxies out to 10s or even 100s of Mpc. We propose to continue our "Gemini Spectrscopic Survey of Clusters in Interacting/Merging Galaxies Survey", by observing a sample of more than 20 young massive clusters in NGC7252, the archetypal post-starburst galaxy. This merger remnant hosts the largest cluster population in the known universe, including the most massive known cluster, W3. We will be able to accurately age date the clusters, and the resulting age distribution will allow us to directly constrain the duration of the merger induced starburst. This is a key diagnostic in constraining star-formation prescriptions in galaxy merger models. These data are designed to complement existing HST/WFPC2 imaging as well as deep HST/WFC3 imaging scheduled to be taken next spring by our team.