Why the Boiling River in Mayantuyacu, Peru Is so Hot

Deep in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, an anomalous and perplexing natural wonder lies: A raging river that boils. Advertisement Once just the stuff of folklore, geophysicist Adrs Ruzo, a PhD student at Southern Methodist University, set out to find the legendary waterway himself.

Deep in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, an anomalous and perplexing natural wonder lies: A raging river that boils.

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Once just the stuff of folklore, geophysicist Adrés Ruzo, a PhD student at Southern Methodist University, set out to find the legendary waterway himself.

He not only found it, but he confirmed that it does, in fact, surge at a scalding 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Devlin Gandy

"It feels like I'm in a sauna inside a toaster oven," Ruzo said sitting on the bank of the river in his new book, The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon. (Ruzo also discussed his quest to understand its puzzling features in a recent TED talk.)

While the temperatures are consistent with those of many other natural volcanic and nonvolcanic geothermal systems, the sheer volume of water in the river is perplexing. Without a powerful heat source, such as an active volcano, the river shouldn't boil this hot and high.

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Here's the story of the boiling river, which rages in a forested region called Mayantuyacu.

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