We present high resolution ( \approx 8 km s ^ { -1 } ) spectra of the QSO Q0201+365 obtained with HIRES , the echelle spectrograph on the 10m W.M .
Keck Telescope .
Although we identify over 80 \% of the absorption features and analyze several of the more complex metal-line systems , we focus our analysis on the damped Ly \alpha system at z = 2.462 .
Ionization simulations suggest the hydrogen in this system is significantly neutral and all of the observed metals are predominantly singly ionized .
We measure accurate abundances for Fe , Cr , Si , Ni and place a lower limit on the abundance of Zn : [ Fe/H ] = -0.830 \pm 0.051 , [ Cr/H ] = -0.902 \pm 0.064 , [ Si/H ] = -0.376 \pm 0.052 , [ Ni/H ] = -1.002 \pm 0.054 and [ Zn/H ] > -0.562 \pm 0.064 .
We give evidence suggesting the actual Zn abundance is [ Zn/H ] \approx - 0.262 , implying the highest metallicity observed at a redshift z \geq 2 .
The relative abundances of these elements remains constant over essentially the entire system ( \approx 150 km s ^ { -1 } in velocity space ) , suggesting it is well mixed .
Furthermore , we use the lack of abundance variations to infer properties of the dust responsible for element depletion .
Finally , we discuss the kinematic characteristics of this damped Ly \alpha system , comparing and contrasting it with other systems .
The low-ion line profiles span \approx 200 km s ^ { -1 } in velocity space and have an asymmetric shape with the strongest feature on the red edge .
These kinematic characteristics are consistent with a rotating disk model .