  The advent of m class telescopes has allowed the detailed spectroscopic study
of sizeable numbers of extremely metal-poor Galactic stars which are the
witnesses of the formation of the early Galaxy. Their chemical composition
displays some distinctive trends which should provide a strong constraint on
the physical nature of the first generation(s) of stars and on their
nucleosynthetic output. I will review recent results in the field following the
periodic table, from lithium to uranium and shortly comment on the intriguing
classes of Carbon Enhanced Metal Poor (CEMP) stars, for many of which there is
no analogue among solar metallicity stars. In spite of these exciting results,
the number of known stars of metallicity below [Fe/H]=-3.3 remains quite small
and it would be desirable to discover more, both to clearly understand the
metal-weak tail of Halo metallicity distribution and to clarify the abundance
trends at the lowest metallicities. Most of these extremely rare objects have
been discovered by the wide field objective prism surveys, HK survey and
Hamburg-ESO survey. In the near future the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and its
continuation SEGUE are expected to boost significantly the numbers of known
extremely metal poor stars. We are living exciting times but an even more
exciting future lies ahead !
