Abundances of Heavy Elements in the Magellanic Clouds

This paper provides the first reliable determination of the iron abundance of the Magellanic Clouds. There is clear evidence for carbon and nitrogen depletion, with respect to iron, in the Clouds which can be explained by the relative youth of the Clouds compared to our own Galaxy. Oxygen depletion relative to iron is also in evidence and it is suggested here that this is due to preferential loss of éjecta from high mass stars. Finally, our discovery of an extremely low abundance star in the SMC, coupled with the identification of a similar star by Spite et al. (1987), calls in to question whether or not the SMC is indeed a well mixed system as previously assumed.