The boiling river of the Amazon

亚马逊河的沸腾河流

by Andrés Ruzo

As a boy in Lima, my grandfather told me a legend of the Spanish conquest of Peru. Atahualpa, emperor of the Inca, had been captured and killed. Pizarro and his conquistadors had grown rich, and tales of their conquest and glory had reached Spain and was bringing new waves of Spaniards, hungry for gold and glory. They would go into towns and ask the Inca, "Where's another civilization we can conquer? Where's more gold?"

作为一个在利马的男孩，我的祖父告诉我一个关于西班牙征服秘鲁的传说。印加皇帝阿塔瓦尔帕被抓获并杀害。皮萨罗和他的征服者们发财了，他们征服和荣耀的故事已经传到了西班牙，并带来了新一波的西班牙人，渴望黄金和荣耀。他们会进入城镇问印加人，“我们能征服的另一个文明在哪里？”黄金在哪里？”

And the Inca, out of vengeance, told them, "Go to the Amazon. You'll find all the gold you want there. In fact, there is a city called Paititi -- El Dorado in Spanish -- made entirely of gold."

印加人出于报复，对他们说：“去亚马逊河。”你会找到所有你想要的金子。事实上，在西班牙有一个叫Paititi的城市，是用黄金打造的。

The Spanish set off into the jungle, but the few that return come back with stories, stories of powerful shamans, of warriors with poisoned arrows, of trees so tall they blotted out the sun, spiders that ate birds, snakes that swallowed men whole and a river that boiled.

西班牙人出发进入丛林，但少数回来的故事，故事的强大的萨满，勇士与毒箭，树高，他们遮住了太阳，蜘蛛，吃鸟，一条蛇吞了人，一条河开了。

All this became a childhood memory. And years passed. I'm working on my PhD at SMU, trying to understand Peru's geothermal energy potential, when I remember this legend, and I began asking that question. Could the boiling river exist?

这一切都成了童年的记忆。几年过去了。我在SMU攻读博士学位，试图了解秘鲁的地热能潜力，当我想起这个传说时，我开始问这个问题。沸腾的河流会存在吗？

I asked colleagues from universities, the government, oil, gas and mining companies, and the answer was a unanimous no. And this makes sense. You see, boiling rivers do exist in the world, but they're generally associated with volcanoes. You need a powerful heat source to produce such a large geothermal manifestation. And as you can see from the red dots here, which are volcanoes, we don't have volcanoes in the Amazon, nor in most of Peru. So it follows: We should not expect to see a boiling river.

我问来自大学、政府、石油、天然气和矿业公司的同事，答案是一致的。这是有道理的。你看，沸腾的河流确实存在于世界上，但它们通常与火山有关。你需要一个强大的热源来产生这么大的地热能。你可以从这里的红点看到，这是火山，我们没有在亚马逊的火山，也没有在秘鲁的大部分。因此，我们不应该期望看到一条沸腾的河流。

Telling this same story at a family dinner, my aunt tells me, "But no, Andrés, I've been there. I've swum in that river."

在一次家宴上讲同样的故事，我阿姨告诉我，“但是，没有，安德雷，我去过那里。我在那条河里游泳。”

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Then my uncle jumps in. "No, Andrés, she's not kidding. You see, you can only swim in it after a very heavy rain, and it's protected by a powerful shaman. Your aunt, she's friends with his wife."

然后我叔叔跳了进来。“不，安德雷，她不是在开玩笑。你看，你只能在一场大雨之后在里面游泳，而且它被一个强大的萨满保护着。你的姨妈，她和他的妻子是朋友。”

(Laughter)

（笑声）

"¿Cómo?" ["Huh?"]

"¿Cómo?" ["Huh?"]

You know, despite all my scientific skepticism, I found myself hiking into the jungle, guided by my aunt, over 700 kilometers away from the nearest volcanic center, and well, honestly, mentally preparing myself to behold the legendary "warm stream of the Amazon."

你知道，尽管我有很多科学上的怀疑，但我还是在我姑妈的指导下，徒步穿越了离最近的火山中心700多公里的丛林，而且，老实说，心里准备着去看那传说中的“亚马逊河暖流”。

But then ... I heard something, a low surge that got louder and louder as we came closer. It sounded like ocean waves constantly crashing, and as we got closer, I saw smoke, vapor, coming up through the trees. And then, I saw this.

但是……我听到一些东西，一个低的浪涌，当我们走近时，声音越来越大。它听起来像海浪不断撞击，当我们走近时，我看到烟雾，蒸气，从树上冒出来。然后，我看到了这个。

I immediately grabbed for my thermometer, and the average temperatures in the river were 86 degrees C. This is not quite the 100-degree C boiling but definitely close enough. The river flowed hot and fast. I followed it upriver and was led by, actually, the shaman's apprentice to the most sacred site on the river. And this is what's bizarre -- It starts off as a cold stream. And here, at this site, is the home of the Yacumama, mother of the waters, a giant serpent spirit who births hot and cold water. And here we find a hot spring, mixing with cold stream water underneath her protective motherly jaws and thus bringing their legends to life.

我立刻抓起我的温度计，河水的平均温度是摄氏86度。这不是相当于100摄氏度的沸腾，但绝对足够接近。河水又热又快。我跟着它向上游走去，事实上，萨满的学徒来到了河上最神圣的地方。奇怪的是，它开始时是一股冷流。在这里，在这个地点，是亚库马的家，水的母亲，一个巨大的蛇精神谁出生热和冷水。在这里，我们找到了一个温泉，在她保护的母亲的下颚下，混合着冰冷的溪水，从而将他们的传说带到了生活中。

The next morning, I woke up and --

第二天早上，我醒来，

(Laughter)

（笑声）

I asked for tea. I was handed a mug, a tea bag and, well, pointed towards the river. To my surprise, the water was clean and had a pleasant taste, which is a little weird for geothermal systems.

我要茶。我被递给一个杯子，一个茶包，而且，嗯，指向河。令我惊讶的是，水是干净的，有一个愉快的味道，这是一个有点奇怪的地热系统。

What was amazing is that the locals had always known about this place, and that I was by no means the first outsider to see it. It was just part of their everyday life. They drink its water. They take in its vapor. They cook with it, clean with it, even make their medicines with it.

令人惊奇的是，当地人一直都知道这个地方，我决不是第一个看到它的外人。这只是他们日常生活的一部分。他们喝它的水。他们吸收了它的蒸气。他们用它做饭，用它清洁，甚至用它做药品。

I met the shaman, and he seemed like an extension of the river and his jungle. He asked for my intentions and listened carefully. Then, to my tremendous relief -- I was freaking out, to be honest with you -- a smile began to snake across his face, and he just laughed.

我遇到了萨满，他看起来像是河流和丛林的延伸。他问我的意图，仔细听了。然后，对我的巨大的解脱--我吓坏了，对你诚实--一个微笑开始在他脸上掠过，他只是笑了。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

I had received the shaman's blessing to study the river, on the condition that after I take the water samples and analyze them in my lab, wherever I was in the world, that I pour the waters back into the ground so that, as the shaman said, the waters could find their way back home.

我收到了萨满的祝福来研究这条河，条件是我在我的实验室里采集水样并进行分析后，无论我在世界上的什么地方，我把水倒在地上，正如萨满所说，水可以找到回家的路。

I've been back every year since that first visit in 2011, and the fieldwork has been exhilarating, demanding and at times dangerous. One story was even featured in National Geographic Magazine. I was trapped on a small rock about the size of a sheet of paper in sandals and board shorts, in between an 80 degree C river and a hot spring that, well, looked like this, close to boiling. And on top of that, it was Amazon rain forest. Pshh, pouring rain, couldn't see a thing. The temperature differential made it all white. It was a whiteout. Intense.

自从2011年第一次访问以来，我每年都会回来，实地工作一直很愉快，要求很高，有时也很危险。《国家地理》杂志甚至刊登了一个故事。我被困在一块小岩石上，大约有一张纸的大小，在一条凉鞋和一条短裤上，在一条80度的C河和一个温泉之间，很好，看起来像这样，接近沸腾。最重要的是亚马逊雨林。嘘，倾盆大雨，什么也看不见。温差使它变白了。那是一个白色的。紧张。

Now, after years of work, I'll soon be submitting my geophysical and geochemical studies for publication. And I'd like to share, today, with all of you here, on the TED stage, for the first time, some of these discoveries.

现在，经过多年的工作，我很快将提交我的地球物理和地球化学研究出版。今天，我想和你们大家一起，在TED的舞台上，第一次，一些这些发现。

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

首先，这不是一个传说。真想不到！

(Laughter)

（笑声）

When I first started the research, the satellite imagery was too low-resolution to be meaningful. There were just no good maps. Thanks to the support of the Google Earth team, I now have this. Not only that, the indigenous name of the river, Shanay-timpishka, "boiled with the heat of the sun," indicating that I'm not the first to wonder why the river boils, and showing that humanity has always sought to explain the world around us.

当我第一次开始研究时，卫星图像分辨率太低，不太有意义。没有好的地图。多亏了Google Earth团队的支持，我现在有了这个。不仅如此，这条河的土著名字——山奈·蒂皮什卡，“随着太阳的热而沸腾”，这表明我不是第一个想知道为什么河水会沸腾的人，并显示人类一直在试图解释我们周围的世界。

So why does the river boil?

那河水为什么会沸腾？

(Bubbling sounds)

（冒泡的声音）

It actually took me three years to get that footage.

我花了三年时间才弄到那个镜头。

Fault-fed hot springs. As we have hot blood running through our veins and arteries, so, too, the earth has hot water running through its cracks and faults. Where these arteries come to the surface, these earth arteries, we'll get geothermal manifestations: fumaroles, hot springs and in our case, the boiling river.

有故障的温泉。当我们的血液流过我们的血管和动脉时，地球也有热水流过它的裂缝和断层。这些动脉到达表面，这些地球的动脉，我们将得到地热的表现：喷气孔，温泉和我们的情况下，沸腾的河流。

What's truly incredible, though, is the scale of this place. Next time you cross the road, think about this. The river flows wider than a two-lane road along most of its path. It flows hot for 6.24 kilometers. Truly impressive. There are thermal pools larger than this TED stage, and that waterfall that you see there is six meters tall -- and all with near-boiling water.

但真正令人难以置信的是这个地方的规模。下次你过马路的时候，想想这个。这条河的大部分道路都比一条双线道宽。它的温度为6.24公里。真令人印象深刻。有比这个TED阶段更大的热水池，你看到的瀑布有6米高，所有的都靠近沸腾的水。

We mapped the temperatures along the river, and this was by far the most demanding part of the fieldwork. And the results were just awesome. Sorry -- the geoscientist in me coming out. And it showed this amazing trend. You see, the river starts off cold. It then heats up, cools back down, heats up, cools back down, heats up again, and then has this beautiful decay curve until it smashes into this cold river.

我们绘制了沿河的温度，这是迄今为止野外工作中最需要的部分。结果真是太棒了。对不起，我的地球科学家出来了。它显示了这一惊人的趋势。你看，这条河开始变冷了。然后加热，冷却下来，加热，冷却下来，再加热，然后有这个美丽的衰变曲线，直到它粉碎到这寒冷的河流。

Now, I understand not all of you are geothermal scientists, so to put it in more everyday terms: Everyone loves coffee. Yes? Good. Your regular cup of coffee, 54 degrees C, an extra-hot one, well, 60. So, put in coffee shop terms, the boiling river plots like this. There you have your hot coffee. Here you have your extra-hot coffee, and you can see that there's a bit point there where the river is still hotter than even the extra-hot coffee. And these are average water temperatures. We took these in the dry season to ensure the purest geothermal temperatures.

现在，我不知道你们所有人都是地热科学家，所以把它放在日常生活中：每个人都喜欢咖啡。是吗？好的。你的普通咖啡，54摄氏度，一个额外的热的，嗯，60。所以，放在咖啡店的术语，像这样的沸腾的河流。你有热咖啡。这里有你的额外的热咖啡，你可以看到有一点，那里的河流仍然比热咖啡更热。这些是平均水温。我们在旱季采取这些措施，以确保最纯净的地热温度。

But there's a magic number here that's not being shown, and that number is 47 degrees C, because that's where things start to hurt, and I know this from very personal experience. Above that temperature, you don't want to get in that water. You need to be careful. It can be deadly.

但是这里有一个不被显示的神奇数字，那个数字是47摄氏度，因为这是开始伤害的地方，我从非常个人的经验中知道这一点。在那温度之上，你不想进入那水里。你需要小心。它可能是致命的。

I've seen all sorts of animals fall in, and what's shocking to me, is the process is pretty much the same. So they fall in and the first thing to go are the eyes. Eyes, apparently, cook very quickly. They turn this milky-white color. The stream is carrying them. They're trying to swim out, but their meat is cooking on the bone because it's so hot. So they're losing power, losing power, until finally they get to a point where hot water goes into their mouths and they cook from the inside out.

我看到过各种各样的动物，我感到震惊的是，这个过程几乎是一样的。所以他们掉进去的第一件事就是眼睛。显然，眼睛很快就会烧起来。它们变成了乳白色。这条小溪正在运送它们。他们想游出去，但他们的肉在骨头上煮，因为它很热。所以他们正在失去权力，失去权力，直到最后他们到达一个点，热水进入他们的嘴里，他们从里面煮出来。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

A bit sadistic, aren't we? Jeez. Leave them marinating for a little longer. What's, again, amazing are these temperatures. They're similar to things that I've seen on volcanoes all over the world and even super-volcanoes like Yellowstone.

有点虐待狂，不是吗？天哪。让他们再多泡一会儿。这些温度又是惊人的。它们和我在世界各地的火山上看到的相似，甚至是像黄石公园这样的超级火山。

But here's the thing: the data is showing that the boiling river exists independent of volcanism. It's neither magmatic or volcanic in origin, and again, over 700 kilometers away from the nearest volcanic center.

但事情是这样的：数据显示，沸腾的河流与火山活动无关。这不是岩浆或火山的起源，又一次，距离最近的火山中心700多公里。

How can a boiling river exist like this? I've asked geothermal experts and volcanologists for years, and I'm still unable to find another non-volcanic geothermal system of this magnitude. It's unique. It's special on a global scale. So, still -- how does it work? Where do we get this heat? There's still more research to be done to better constrain the problem and better understand the system, but from what the data is telling us now, it looks to be the result of a large hydrothermal system.

一条沸腾的河流怎么能这样存在呢？我已经问了地热专家和火山学家多年，我仍然无法找到另一个非火山地热系统。这是独一无二的。它在全球范围内是特别的。那么，它是如何工作的？我们在哪里得到这种热量？还有更多的研究要做，以更好地约束问题，更好地理解系统，但从数据告诉我们现在，它看起来是一个大型水热系统的结果。

Basically, it works like this: So, the deeper you go into the earth, the hotter it gets. We refer to this as the geothermal gradient. The waters could be coming from as far away as glaciers in the Andes, then seeping down deep into the earth and coming out to form the boiling river after getting heated up from the geothermal gradient, all due to this unique geologic setting.

基本上，它是这样运作的：所以，你进入地球越深，它就越热。我们称之为地温梯度。水可能从安第斯山脉的冰川中流出，然后深入地下，从地温梯度升温后形成沸腾的河流，都是由于这个独特的地质背景。

Now, we found that in and around the river -- this is working with colleagues from National Geographic, Dr. Spencer Wells, and Dr. Jon Eisen from UC Davis -- we genetically sequenced the extremophile lifeforms living in and around the river, and have found new lifeforms, unique species living in the boiling river.

现在，我们发现在河的周围--这是和国家地理的同事斯宾塞·韦尔斯博士合作的，来自加州大学戴维斯分校的乔恩·艾森博士——我们对生活在河中和周围的极端微生物的生命形式进行了基因排序，发现了新的生命形式，生活在沸腾的河流中的独特物种。

But again, despite all of these studies, all of these discoveries and the legends, a question remains: What is the significance of the boiling river? What is the significance of this stationary cloud that always hovers over this patch of jungle? And what is the significance of a detail in a childhood legend?

但是，尽管所有这些研究，所有这些发现和传说，一个问题仍然存在：什么是沸腾的河流的意义？这个静止的云在这片丛林上空盘旋的意义是什么？在童年的传说中，细节的意义是什么？

To the shaman and his community, it's a sacred site. To me, as a geoscientist, it's a unique geothermal phenomenon. But to the illegal loggers and cattle farmers, it's just another resource to exploit. And to the Peruvian government, it's just another stretch of unprotected land ready for development.

对萨满和他的社区来说，这是一个神圣的场所。对我来说，作为一个地球科学家，这是一个独特的地热现象。但对于非法伐木者和养牛者来说，这只是另一种剥削的资源。而对于秘鲁政府来说，这只是另一片未受保护的土地，准备发展。

My goal is to ensure that whoever controls this land understands the boiling river's uniqueness and significance. Because that's the question, one of significance. And the thing there is, we define significance. It's us. We have that power. We are the ones who draw that line between the sacred and the trivial. And in this age, where everything seems mapped, measured and studied, in this age of information, I remind you all that discoveries are not just made in the black void of the unknown but in the white noise of overwhelming data.

我的目标是确保任何控制这片土地的人都能理解沸腾的河流的独特性和意义。因为这是一个重要的问题。还有就是，我们定义了意义。是我们。我们有这种能力。我们是那些在神圣与琐碎之间划出界限的人。在这个时代，在这个信息时代，一切似乎都被映射、测量和研究，我提醒你们所有的发现不仅仅是在未知的黑色虚空中，而是在压倒性数据的白噪声中。

There remains so much to explore. We live in an incredible world. So go out. Be curious. Because we do live in a world where shamans still sing to the spirits of the jungle, where rivers do boil and where legends do come to life.

还有很多要探索的东西。我们生活在一个不可思议的世界里。所以出去吧。好奇。因为我们生活在一个巫师们仍在向丛林的精灵歌唱的世界里，在那里河流沸腾，传说在那里复活。

Thank you very much.

非常感谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）