  We address the question of the occurrence of star formation bursts in the
solar neighbourhood by using the metallicity distribution of the G dwarfs. We
present a method to recover the star formation history using simultaneously the
metallicity distribution and the age-metallicity relation. The method
associates the number of stars in a given metallicity interval with the
corresponding time interval predicted by the age-metallicity relation. We take
into account corrections relative to observational errors, cosmic scatter and
scale height effects. The method is tested by simulations of the chemical
evolution of a galaxy with irregular star formation rate, and our results show
that it is possible to recover the star formation history fairly well. The
application of the method to the solar neighbourhood shows evidences for at
least two strong events of star formation: a burst 8 Gyr ago, and a lull 2-3
Gyr ago. These features confirm some previous studies on the star formation
history in the local disk.
