At the coordinates you will find fumaroles. Please read and study the interpretive sign on the side of the roadway facing the Odoy River and then observe the fumaroles.
A fumerole is an opening in the earth's crust, often close to volcanoes, which emits steam or other gases. The steam is created when superheated water turns to steam as its pressure drops when it emerges from the ground into the atmosphere.
Fumeroles may occur along tiny cracks or long fissures, in clusters or fields, in volcano lava fields, or in pyroclastic flows. A different description is an underground hot spring that boils off before reaching the surface.
Fumeroles can be of long term or short term duration, from weeks to hundreds of years, depending upon the nature of the heat source in the earth.
At the coordinates, you will see some signs that describe the gas that is coming from the fumeroles. Please pay close attention to the content and warnings.
Within a few kilometers of the coordinates is the Palinpinon Geothermal Plant (N 9º 17.933' E 123º 10.233'), which generates electricity by using the geothermal energy that is close to the earth's surface in this area. Also close by is Mount Talinis or Cuernos de Negros, a dormant volcano. Further north on the island of Negros is Mount Canla-on, an active volcano with eruptions as recent as 2009.
To log this earthcache, please answer the following questions by sending me an email. DO NOT POST your answers in the log.
1. How many meters underground is the steam formed?
2. Does the steam have an odor? If so, what is the smell?
3. What is the name or chemical symbol of the emitted gases?
4. What is the color of the mineral deposits around the fumaroles? Is that same color evident at other places, or just around the fumarole opening? Based on that color, can you determine what deposit consists of?
Ref: 1. Wikipedia, Fumaroles; 2. The Palinpinon Geothermal Field, Valencia, Negros Oriental, Philippines; Tolentino, B.S. 1986