This Mythical River in Peru Is Boiling—and One Young Scientist Is on a Quest to Protect It
This Mythical River in Peru Is Boiling—and One Young Scientist Is on a Quest to Protect It
Posted by Kelley McMillan on February 18, 2016
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The Boiling River is at the center of life of Mayantuyacu—essential as a source of water, cooking, cleaning, making
medicines, even telling time. At the Boiling River, you regularly hear locals refer to “la hora del vapor” (“the vapor
hour”). It refers to the end of the day before nightfall, when cooler air temperatures create great plumes of vapor
rising up from the river. “La hora del vapor” is a time of relaxation, meditation, and even enjoying the natural
sauna; Photograph by Devlin Gandy
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As a boy growing up in Peru, Nicaragua, and Texas, Andrés Ruzo heard a legend about a boiling river deep in the heart of the Amazon. Years later in 2011, Ruzo, by then a geoscientist working on a thermal map of Peru, traveled by car, canoe, and foot to a remote swath of the Amazon populated by white-throated toucans, jaguars, and indigenous tribes with a rich shamanic culture to see if the myth was true.
There amid the dense central Peruvian Amazon, over 400 miles from the nearest volcano, he came upon the Boiling River, a flowing, four-mile-long river as wide as a two-lane road, 16 feet deep in places, and averaging 186ºF—hot enough to cook a small animal in seconds.
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It is the scale of the Boiling River that is truly impressive. It flows hot for just less than four miles, can get up to 80
feet wide at its widest point, and up to 15 feet deep in others. The thermal flow is a result of fault-fed hot springs
super-charging the river with geothermal waters bubbling up from below; Photograph by Devlin Gandy
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Though the local people had long known about the river, it had never been studied by scientists, which meant that in this age of information saturation, Ruzo had stumbled upon a scientific discovery of the highest order: what’s thought to be one of the largest thermal rivers on the planet, made even more unusual by the fact that it’s not heated by volcanic activity.
Since his discovery of the Boiling River, which was aided by National Geographic grants, Ruzo has devoted his life to studying and preserving it, as well as the jungle surrounding it. This week, he debuted his book The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon, as well as the Boiling River Project, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the river; the adjacent jungle, which is threatened by loggers, farmers, and oil companies; and the indigenous people who live there.
More:
http://adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/18/this-mythical-river-in-peru-is-boiling-and-one-young-scientist-is-on-a-quest-to-protect-it/
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