We all know about rivers wgetein usually its water is calm, and clean, but what if it is hot? You might say it is impossible but, as you know nature is a mystery, like normal river, it has created boiling river also.
Yes, a boiling river! Well, there is a river that is hidden in a dense jungle of the Peruvian Amazon.
The Shanay-Timpishka, also known as La Bomba, is a tributary of the Amazon River, called the “only boiling river in the world. Known by natives of the deep Amazonian forest as the Shanay Timpishka, the mysterious river with boiling waters is located in Peru, in the province of Puerto Inca.
As per the records, the steaming turquoise waters of this river can reach up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and are guarded by stones and 60-foot walls of lush green forest.
This stream that has a depth of about 6 metres and a width of 25 metres, flows for over 4 miles inside the jungle. Until 2011, most scholars thought that the “boiling river” was just a popular legend, but they were forced to change their mind when Andrés Ruzo, a young Peruvian with a passion for Geology, decided to go in search of this mysterious place. Following the stories of his grandfather and a map provided by some of his colleagues, he managed to find the boiling river, proving that “the river that kills” really exists.
The most shocking part of this discovery to most is that there is an absence of volcanoes in the nearby area, as there are many known hot springs directly resulting from the effect of lava such is the case in Iceland and Yosemite. The boiling river in Mayantuyacu is about 450 miles away, making the Shanay-Timpishka shrouded in mystery.The mud of the riverbank was too hot to walk on, and if you fell in your skin would be covered in third-degree burns in less than a second. Small unfortunate animals, like frogs, could be found floating dead and broiled in the water.
After some investigating and testing different hypothesis, Ruzo and his research colleagues believe that a fault-led hydrothermal feature was causing the river to reach such temperatures. The water seeps deep into the earth, heats up underground, and resurfaces through faults and cracks.
The predominant theory for the source of this heat is from the geothermal gradient of the Earth. Being closer to the Earth’s mantle, underground water tends to be of a higher temperature than surface water. The theory is that rainwater falls onto the surface of the Amazon Rainforest and finds deep-rooted faults where it travels down into the crust. The water is thus heated in accordance with the geothermal gradient. It is then likely fed to the surface of the Earth through fault-fed hot springs that act to heat up the river along its stretch.
The Shanay-Timpishka is facing threats from deforestation. According to National Geographic, it is in fact the local native population which carries out most of the deforestation around the area. Up to ninety-nine percent of deforestation around the Boiling River being caused by locals selling the larger and more expensive trees, then clear-burning the rest.
To preserve the sacred river, Ruzo started the Boiling River Project to protect and study the natural wonder in a safe manner.