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As a boy in Lima,

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my grandfather told me a legend

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of the Spanish conquest of Peru.

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Atahualpa, emperor of the Inca,
had been captured and killed.

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Pizarro and his conquistadors
had grown rich,

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and tales of their conquest
and glory had reached Spain

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and was bringing new waves of Spaniards,
hungry for gold and glory.

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They would go into towns and ask the Inca,

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"Where's another civilization
we can conquer? Where's more gold?"

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And the Inca, out of vengeance, told them,

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"Go to the Amazon.

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You'll find all the gold you want there.

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In fact, there is a city called Paititi --
El Dorado in Spanish --

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made entirely of gold."

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The Spanish set off into the jungle,

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but the few that return
come back with stories,

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stories of powerful shamans,

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of warriors with poisoned arrows,

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of trees so tall they blotted out the sun,

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spiders that ate birds,
snakes that swallowed men whole

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and a river that boiled.

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All this became a childhood memory.

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And years passed.

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I'm working on my PhD at SMU,

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trying to understand
Peru's geothermal energy potential,

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when I remember this legend,

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and I began asking that question.

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Could the boiling river exist?

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I asked colleagues from universities,

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the government,

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oil, gas and mining companies,

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and the answer was a unanimous no.

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And this makes sense.

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You see, boiling rivers
do exist in the world,

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but they're generally
associated with volcanoes.

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You need a powerful heat source

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to produce such a large
geothermal manifestation.

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And as you can see from the red dots
here, which are volcanoes,

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we don't have volcanoes in the Amazon,

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nor in most of Peru.

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So it follows: We should not expect
to see a boiling river.

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Telling this same story
at a family dinner,

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my aunt tells me,

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"But no, Andrés, I've been there.
I've swum in that river."

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(Laughter)

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Then my uncle jumps in.

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"No, Andrés, she's not kidding.

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You see, you can only swim in it
after a very heavy rain,

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and it's protected by a powerful shaman.

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Your aunt, she's friends with his wife."

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(Laughter)

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"¿Cómo?" ["Huh?"]

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You know, despite all
my scientific skepticism,

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I found myself hiking into the jungle,
guided by my aunt,

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over 700 kilometers away
from the nearest volcanic center,

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and well, honestly,
mentally preparing myself

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to behold the legendary
"warm stream of the Amazon."

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But then ...

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I heard something,

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a low surge

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that got louder and louder

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as we came closer.

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It sounded like ocean waves
constantly crashing,

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and as we got closer, I saw smoke, vapor,
coming up through the trees.

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And then, I saw this.

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I immediately grabbed for my thermometer,

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and the average temperatures in the river

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were 86 degrees C.

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This is not quite
the 100-degree C boiling

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but definitely close enough.

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The river flowed hot and fast.

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I followed it upriver and was led by,
actually, the shaman's apprentice

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to the most sacred site on the river.

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And this is what's bizarre --

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It starts off as a cold stream.

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And here, at this site,

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is the home of the Yacumama,

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mother of the waters,
a giant serpent spirit

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who births hot and cold water.

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And here we find a hot spring,

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mixing with cold stream water
underneath her protective motherly jaws

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and thus bringing their legends to life.

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The next morning, I woke up and --

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(Laughter)

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I asked for tea.

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I was handed a mug, a tea bag

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and, well, pointed towards the river.

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To my surprise, the water was clean
and had a pleasant taste,

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which is a little weird
for geothermal systems.

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What was amazing

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is that the locals had always
known about this place,

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and that I was by no means
the first outsider to see it.

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It was just part of their everyday life.

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They drink its water.

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They take in its vapor.

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They cook with it,

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clean with it,

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even make their medicines with it.

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I met the shaman,

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and he seemed like an extension
of the river and his jungle.

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He asked for my intentions

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and listened carefully.

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Then, to my tremendous relief --

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I was freaking out,
to be honest with you --

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a smile began to snake across his face,
and he just laughed.

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(Laughter)

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I had received the shaman's blessing
to study the river,

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on the condition that after I take
the water samples

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and analyze them in my lab,

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wherever I was in the world,

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that I pour the waters
back into the ground

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so that, as the shaman said,

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the waters could find their way back home.

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I've been back every year
since that first visit in 2011,

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and the fieldwork has been exhilarating,

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demanding and at times dangerous.

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One story was even featured
in National Geographic Magazine.

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I was trapped on a small rock
about the size of a sheet of paper

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in sandals and board shorts,

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in between an 80 degree C river

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and a hot spring that, well,
looked like this, close to boiling.

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And on top of that,
it was Amazon rain forest.

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Pshh, pouring rain, couldn't see a thing.

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The temperature differential
made it all white. It was a whiteout.

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Intense.

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Now, after years of work,

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I'll soon be submitting my geophysical
and geochemical studies for publication.

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And I'd like to share, today,
with all of you here, on the TED stage,

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for the first time,
some of these discoveries.

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Well, first off, it's not a legend.

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Surprise!

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(Laughter)

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When I first started the research,

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the satellite imagery was too
low-resolution to be meaningful.

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There were just no good maps.

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Thanks to the support
of the Google Earth team,

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I now have this.

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Not only that, the indigenous name
of the river, Shanay-timpishka,

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"boiled with the heat of the sun,"

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indicating that I'm not the first
to wonder why the river boils,

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and showing that humanity
has always sought to explain

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the world around us.

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So why does the river boil?

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(Bubbling sounds)

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It actually took me three years
to get that footage.

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Fault-fed hot springs.

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As we have hot blood running
through our veins and arteries,

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so, too, the earth has hot water
running through its cracks and faults.

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Where these arteries come to the surface,
these earth arteries,

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we'll get geothermal manifestations:

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fumaroles, hot springs
and in our case, the boiling river.

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What's truly incredible, though,
is the scale of this place.

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Next time you cross the road,
think about this.

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The river flows wider than a two-lane road

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along most of its path.

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It flows hot for 6.24 kilometers.

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Truly impressive.

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There are thermal pools
larger than this TED stage,

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and that waterfall that you see there

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is six meters tall --

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and all with near-boiling water.

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We mapped the temperatures
along the river,

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and this was by far the most
demanding part of the fieldwork.

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And the results were just awesome.

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Sorry -- the geoscientist
in me coming out.

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And it showed this amazing trend.

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You see, the river starts off cold.

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It then heats up, cools back down,
heats up, cools back down,

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heats up again, and then has
this beautiful decay curve

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until it smashes into this cold river.

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Now, I understand not all of you
are geothermal scientists,

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so to put it in more everyday terms:

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Everyone loves coffee.

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Yes? Good.

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Your regular cup of coffee, 54 degrees C,

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an extra-hot one, well, 60.

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So, put in coffee shop terms,

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the boiling river plots like this.

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There you have your hot coffee.

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Here you have your extra-hot coffee,

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and you can see
that there's a bit point there

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where the river is still hotter
than even the extra-hot coffee.

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And these are average water temperatures.

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We took these in the dry season to ensure
the purest geothermal temperatures.

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But there's a magic number here
that's not being shown,

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and that number is 47 degrees C,

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because that's where things start to hurt,

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and I know this from very
personal experience.

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Above that temperature,
you don't want to get in that water.

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You need to be careful.

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It can be deadly.

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I've seen all sorts of animals fall in,

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and what's shocking to me,
is the process is pretty much the same.

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So they fall in and the first thing
to go are the eyes.

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Eyes, apparently, cook very quickly.
They turn this milky-white color.

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The stream is carrying them.

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They're trying to swim out,
but their meat is cooking on the bone

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because it's so hot.

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00:10:35,645 --> 00:10:37,490
So they're losing power, losing power,

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until finally they get to a point
where hot water goes into their mouths

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and they cook from the inside out.

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(Laughter)

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A bit sadistic, aren't we?

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Jeez.

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Leave them marinating for a little longer.

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00:10:57,468 --> 00:11:00,196
What's, again, amazing
are these temperatures.

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00:11:00,220 --> 00:11:03,698
They're similar to things that I've seen
on volcanoes all over the world

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00:11:03,722 --> 00:11:06,259
and even super-volcanoes like Yellowstone.

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00:11:06,896 --> 00:11:08,204
But here's the thing:

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00:11:10,173 --> 00:11:15,172
the data is showing
that the boiling river exists

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00:11:15,196 --> 00:11:17,486
independent of volcanism.

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00:11:18,491 --> 00:11:21,911
It's neither magmatic
or volcanic in origin,

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00:11:23,722 --> 00:11:29,925
and again, over 700 kilometers away
from the nearest volcanic center.

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00:11:30,543 --> 00:11:34,909
How can a boiling river exist like this?

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00:11:35,790 --> 00:11:38,946
I've asked geothermal experts
and volcanologists for years,

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00:11:38,970 --> 00:11:43,787
and I'm still unable to find another
non-volcanic geothermal system

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00:11:43,811 --> 00:11:45,378
of this magnitude.

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00:11:47,121 --> 00:11:48,645
It's unique.

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00:11:49,489 --> 00:11:52,931
It's special on a global scale.

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00:11:54,708 --> 00:11:57,176
So, still -- how does it work?

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00:11:58,460 --> 00:12:00,596
Where do we get this heat?

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00:12:01,186 --> 00:12:03,279
There's still more research to be done

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00:12:03,303 --> 00:12:06,492
to better constrain the problem
and better understand the system,

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00:12:06,516 --> 00:12:08,842
but from what the data is telling us now,

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00:12:08,866 --> 00:12:12,230
it looks to be the result
of a large hydrothermal system.

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00:12:13,151 --> 00:12:14,611
Basically, it works like this:

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00:12:14,635 --> 00:12:17,943
So, the deeper you go
into the earth, the hotter it gets.

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00:12:17,967 --> 00:12:20,595
We refer to this
as the geothermal gradient.

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00:12:21,460 --> 00:12:26,388
The waters could be coming
from as far away as glaciers in the Andes,

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00:12:26,412 --> 00:12:28,411
then seeping down deep into the earth

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00:12:28,435 --> 00:12:31,202
and coming out to form the boiling river

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00:12:31,226 --> 00:12:34,233
after getting heated up
from the geothermal gradient,

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00:12:35,311 --> 00:12:37,550
all due to this unique geologic setting.

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00:12:38,587 --> 00:12:41,434
Now, we found
that in and around the river --

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this is working with colleagues

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00:12:42,975 --> 00:12:45,062
from National Geographic,
Dr. Spencer Wells,

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00:12:45,086 --> 00:12:47,796
and Dr. Jon Eisen from UC Davis --

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00:12:47,820 --> 00:12:51,082
we genetically sequenced
the extremophile lifeforms

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00:12:51,106 --> 00:12:55,710
living in and around the river,
and have found new lifeforms,

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00:12:55,734 --> 00:12:59,149
unique species living
in the boiling river.

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00:13:00,264 --> 00:13:05,507
But again, despite all of these studies,
all of these discoveries and the legends,

242
00:13:06,499 --> 00:13:07,499
a question remains:

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00:13:09,704 --> 00:13:12,624
What is the significance
of the boiling river?

244
00:13:14,601 --> 00:13:19,247
What is the significance
of this stationary cloud

245
00:13:19,271 --> 00:13:22,147
that always hovers
over this patch of jungle?

246
00:13:23,333 --> 00:13:25,983
And what is the significance

247
00:13:26,007 --> 00:13:28,990
of a detail in a childhood legend?

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00:13:31,547 --> 00:13:34,655
To the shaman and his community,
it's a sacred site.

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00:13:35,414 --> 00:13:37,759
To me, as a geoscientist,

250
00:13:37,783 --> 00:13:40,626
it's a unique geothermal phenomenon.

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00:13:42,074 --> 00:13:45,772
But to the illegal loggers
and cattle farmers,

252
00:13:45,796 --> 00:13:49,439
it's just another resource to exploit.

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00:13:50,820 --> 00:13:54,607
And to the Peruvian government,
it's just another stretch

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of unprotected land ready for development.

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My goal is to ensure
that whoever controls this land

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understands the boiling river's
uniqueness and significance.

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Because that's the question,

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one of significance.

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And the thing there is,

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we define significance.

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It's us. We have that power.

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We are the ones who draw that line

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between the sacred and the trivial.

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And in this age,

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where everything seems mapped,
measured and studied,

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in this age of information,

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I remind you all that discoveries
are not just made

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in the black void of the unknown

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but in the white noise
of overwhelming data.

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There remains so much to explore.

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We live in an incredible world.

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So go out.

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Be curious.

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Because we do live in a world

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where shamans still sing
to the spirits of the jungle,

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where rivers do boil

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and where legends do come to life.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)