When you drive towards Peru's Boiling River, along a bumpy, four-hour track through the rainforest, it's only after you transcend a crest in

How the Amazon's 'Boiling River' foreshadows a warmer world

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2024-12-12 14:30:06

When you drive towards Peru's Boiling River, along a bumpy, four-hour track through the rainforest, it's only after you transcend a crest in the landscape that you see it ahead of you, says Alyssa Kullberg, a postdoctoral researcher in plant ecology at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL). Huge billows of steam rise from a clutch of trees in the wide, saucer-like depression below.

"It was so magical," says Kullberg, remembering the first time she saw it with her own eyes. The Boiling River, also known as the Shanay-timpishka or La Bomba, is part of a tributary in east-central Peru that connects to the mighty Amazon River.

The hills in this area were scoured by fossil fuel companies looking for oil reserves in the 1930s but the secrets of the legendary Boiling River itself are only now being told in depth by Western scientists. Researchers have, for instance, determined that the river is heated by geothermal sources deep in the ground below. Kullberg first visited this mysterious place in 2022 along with a team from the US and Peru, including Riley Fortier, currently a PhD candidate at the University of Miami. As the researchers trekked through the jungle, they noticed something unusual about the plant life around them.

"It was just really evident to all of us that there was a clear and noticeable change along the river," says Fortier. "The forest felt maybe scrubbier. There weren't as [many] big trees and it felt a little bit drier as well, the leaf litter was crunchier."