A river in the Peruvian Amazon that runs hot enough to kill. The highest temperature measured in it is 99.1 C in a hot spring and the highest average for the river itself is close to 95, over the lower 6.3 km of a 9 km course, and things that fall in are cooked. What makes it a real puzzle rather than a curiosity is that there is no volcano anywhere near it and no known geothermal vent. The mechanism worked out is a plumbing one: rain sinks deep along fault lines, is warmed by the ordinary heat gradient of the Earth at depth, and comes back up through hot springs, which means a non-volcanic river can be this hot given the right fractures. Andres Ruzo, who first heard about it from his grandfather as a child, is the geoscientist who documented it and took it to TEDGlobal in 2014. Local shamans attribute the heat to Yacumama, the giant serpent spirit called the mother of the waters. Huanuco, Puerto Inca Province.
Huanuco, Peru
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