Raining destruction

Scientists have been issuing warnings about the havoc acid rain could play with the environment. Now archaeologists have also joined the campaign. They have done so because the eruption of Mount Katla - a volcano in south-east Iceland - 3,000 years ago, had let out enormous quantities of acid and killed a group of Scottish settlers on the Island. The remains of this group were excavated when a road was being laid in the region.

Says volcanologist John Gribben of the Institute of Earth Sciences, at of Wales in the University Aberystwyth, UK, "Mount Katlat erupts every 50 years and an eruption is overdue. And when it does happen, it could be catastrophic because the quality of air is already very bad an t e environment will not be able to absorb the acid load".