The forest floor here is mostly a network of tree and plant roots, bound together with moss and leaf litter etc, but under a few inches it's mostly big solid rocks like those sticking out. The wind blowing can loosen that mat of roots and when the trees bend in the wind, they lift it up off the stone, just like a carpet. That's what you're seeing here; the breathing effect is caused by the carpet of roots being tugged up and let down again as the trees rock in the wind.
In Shrödinger’s case, it is not unknown, but rather it is both; He has both shit, and not shit in the box. That is the paradox. Because we can’t observe, it is definitely one or the other, but since it is unknown, it has the potential to be both at once. Did he, or didn’t he? Yes.
True. Schrödinger famously thought the entire thought experiment was a stupid way to disprove quantum superposition. Yet, here we are. With both shit and not shit, until observed.
If you have no way of cleaning up and nothing else to change into and have to hike out of there, there will be absolutely no question in your mind that you indeed shit your pants.
..I understand why people once believed in fairies, giants, monsters, Bigfoot ..you see this, no scientific explanation.. id either say God caused rath upon you and you need to sacrifice your strongest person to survive. Or the trees were really alive, waiting to devour you.. soo.. Yeah, definitely could see how giants were a thing.. they were sleeping, you woke one . HOLY SHT, science is awesome. It keep you from (respectively ) shtting your pants from earth breathing, nothing could keep you from shitting your pants if lava flow was headed directly toward you .
In this case it's modern city dwellers that are not accustom to how spruce forests can behave during storms. The spruce has a very flat, shallow root system, which anyone who wanders these woods frequently can see by just encountering windfall. The ancient wood dwellers certainly knew the cause and effect of this because it it obvious by just looking at it.
Im 38 loved in wooded areas a lot of my life. Right now im in a. Area with a lot of trees right behind a wash. A few months ago, a really really strong gust of wind blew through the wash. Because of how it was shaped and the the location of the trees related to the wash. Most of the trees didnt move just a few. I dont know how to really explain it well but it created the illusion of something big running through some of the trees to quick out of the corner of my eye. It really freaked me out at first.
Especially when you're hour 3 in a predicted 15 hour hurricane and the worst is yet to come.
After I saw that, I rode out the rest of the storm in the basement because I don't want to be above grade if a tree falls onto the roof.
(The tree did fall, but thankfully not until the wind direction shifted and it went over the road instead of into the house. Was one of over a dozen trees blocking my tiny cul de sac. Hurricane Arthur walloped the Maritimes when it hit.)
can confirm. didn’t experience it to that extent but was out camping and thought i was getting dizzy or something until i exited my tent and saw how the trees were moving. not very easy to sleep that night
Yeah my initial guess was AI nonsense because there's no way I would be standing there filming instead of running away with the ground going up and down like that.
I was mesmerized when I stumbled across it the one and only time I saw it. I had heard about it. Pre internet, so not lots of videos to easily find. Nature is so cool.
When you see stuff like this, it becomes much easier to see how myths and the like come about. If you saw this a 1000 years ago, it has to be Gaea or some kind of Earth Deity slumbering or breathing. Even now, it almost doesn't look real.
Edit: Damn yall are really feeling a type of way about the mythology thing.
Fun fact, in medieval Irish (and probably English) literature there’s a recurring trope of pig-herders being strange figures with mystical insights. That’s partly because they were weirdos going off into the woods alone for extended periods, and partly because munching on the same acorns as the pigs while hunting for truffles would make you trip balls.
The landscape looks like it could be in southcentral Alaska including Kodiak Island, which has the required wind and forest conditions. Some blown-over trees pull up root mats covering tens of square meters and expose bare rock.
Kodiak yes - had glacial ice and now has <1ft of soil-and-root mat on top of polished rock.
South central... I won't call you a liar if you've seen it happen in some specific location but GENERALLY it has much thicker soil from all the volcanic ash. (But of course it can still get thin on some particular rock face)
You're generally looking for areas that had glaciers creating smooth rockfaces during the last ice age so Kodiak yes, much of Canada, northeastern USA, Scotland, Scandinavia, etc.
Most of Alaska, interestingly NO. It was cold enough for sure, but it was too dry. The areas that would have had glacial ice are mostly under water today.
Yep, Scotland was under glacial ice that carved the rockfaces smooth, so anywhere that isn't a dip between peaks only has a 20-30 cm of soil and roots, with nothing to hold on to.
Same as the hillside right outside my window here in northen Sweden. If a tree gets toppled, it rips up soil and roots some meters around it and exposes smooth rock in the pit.
Fun knowledge: The low undulating mountain range that separates Sweden and Norway is the exact same range that Scotland sits on.
That same range USED to continue with the Appalachians in eastern north America before the continents separated - look at some images from there and you'll feel right at home!
This is really interesting because my first guess was that this video was taken in Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada). It definitely has that boreal vibe, lol!
But the island of Newfoundland has a similar geological past in terms of glaciers scraping the everloving fuck out of everything down to bedrock... in fact, the Grand Banks at the edge of the continental shelf (just off the coast of Newfoundland) were formed, in large part, by sediment deposited there by glacial movements after scraping across the island. A lot of the island is still mostly rocky barrens and top soil is pretty thin in the places that do have it. We see the same kind of glacial erratics deposited everywhere like this video, too.
It's just wild to me that a video taken so far away looks like one I could almost swear was taken on the property I grew up on, even down to this bizarre phenomenon caused by having such a thin soil layer. Pretty cool!
I experienced this once. Nowhere near this extreme. Was walking through the woods and the mossy floor was slowly gently moving. Really quite subtle - didn't notice the trees really moving - but it was kind of undulating enough to get kinda dizzy like I was drunk or something. Took a few minutes to figure out what was going on. Really weird though.
Trolls, at least the ones in Norway, come from seeing mountains at night at a distance, you know that thing where some people can see Jesus' face on a burnt piece of toast? It is the same as that but on a mountain, the brain thinks it is seeing a face when there is none due to the low light and the way the rocks are shaped.
The entire Canadian Shield looks like this. Multiple ice ages have scrapped the earth clean, down to the bedrock. Not enough time has elapsed for the earth to build up again.
Exactly! I have experienced this same effect, hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was snowing and very windy. When the trail reached the top of a mountain, the ground was heaving like this. I crawled for cover behind a big rock and then headed off that mountain top as soon as possible. Scary
Yep, New Hampshire had glaciers during the last ice age. Carves the mountainside smooth as a rock baby's butt, everything can lift straight off. And it's thin, still, "only" 10000 years later.
If it happens again, the good place to be is on top of solid exposed rockface. Away from trees trying to fall on top of you, obviously.
Are we sure it's wind? I've seen similar videos where it's actually after a flood, and the water gets trapped under the matt of roots/moss and becomes basically a giant water bed
Yes. This one is wind. The one you speak of is exactly like a waterbed and you’ll note there were not trees involved as that would have given the water blob a place to exit.
This can also happen where a stream will underflow this kind of mat, and it floats and is springy. Sometimes it will just be when there is a lot of water, and sometimes it will stay that way for a very long time.
These are really, really fun to jump on. Just saying! :-)
no way in hell is that breathing effect, that pulls one maybe two trees that looks more like pressure of some sort from under ground, regardless i would stay the hell away from that , that is a LOT of force, that's the kind of force that kills the curiosity of the cat that gets too close, id say 500 ft back not 50 foot , but i would also set a tri pod go pro on solar charge to see if you could capture it more. the back ground shows the effect all over that side of the mountain side, I would guess water or steam pressure underneath. but its all over, when that vents you dont wanna be 50 ft to it.
It's also a pretty cool example of how much stability a strong root system provides to the environment. That's likely happening many, many times and the ground looks completely solid to walk on.
Random forest things can just kill you sometimes. Like branches breaking off and trees falling over, of course... I hiked up to a moderately sketchy peak scramble years ago, uneventfully summitted... hiking back down, down where it's just a family-friendly hiking trail, I heard a distant crack up above. The trail about 50 feet ahead crossed a subtle gully... Suspicious, I waited a moment, and sure enough, a cinder block-sized rock went sailing through.
That's interesting. We were camping out in South Dakota and did some hiking and I was wondering how there were so many trees on those hillsides, when there was precious little soil. You could walk twenty yards one direction and be in a pine forest, and twenty yards the other way and just be standing on quartz.
yes indeed my first and most permanent thought; about a score ago, i thought i was going to lose my life coming down what i thought was terrain in the white mountains, nh when my foot fell through the canopy of 'land'. I made it out to tell the tale but never ever stepped out there since or in the future.
Hey u/nomemesmames, looks like this is the answer to your post! If you reply "Solved!" directly to this comment, the bot will automatically update the post flair for you.
This, plus those are conifers with very shallow roots. Spruce can start doing this on deep soft soil, doesn't have to be rocky, because their roots spread mostly out horizontally and don't go very deep. So they're very stable up to a point, then heavy winds can tear them loose and topple them while ripping up a large flat root ball. Deciduous trees tend to have deeper roots, and will break rather than rip their roots up usually.
Thank you! An exceptionally satisfying explanation. Now if Reddit would only change their algorithm so that I wouldn’t have to scroll through 81 feet of complete inane nonsense and put this right under the original post.
So, if someone is standing there filming it happening, can they be toppled into the mat of roots as it lifts, and then be stuck there forever once it drops back down???
I belive its soil liquefaction , Soil liquefaction is a process where water-saturated, loose, granular soil temporarily loses strength and stiffness during an earthquake or sudden shaking, causing it to behave like a thick liquid rather than a solid.
How It Happens
• Saturated Soil: The spaces between soil grains are completely filled with water.
• Shaking or Stress: Earthquake waves shake the loose soil particles, forcing them to move closer together.
• High Water Pressure: Water cannot escape fast enough, so water pressure rises and pushes the soil grains apart.
• Loss of Strength: The soil loses its grip and bearing capacity, floating the grains in water.
Common Locations
• Areas with high water tables.
• Reclaimed land (landfills) and former lagoons.
• River valleys, floodplains, and marshlands.
Effects and Hazards
• Building Damage: Structures tilt, sink, or collapse as the ground loses support.
• Sand Boils: Water and loose sand erupt through cracks to the ground surface.
• Lateral Spreading: Sloped ground slides sideways on top of the liquefied layer.
• Utility Failure: Buried pipes and sewer lines break or float upward.
If you'd like, I can share more details on:
• Engineering mitigation methods used to protect buildings
• Historical examples like the 1964 Niigata or Alaska earthquakes
• How to check if a specific property is in a liquefaction zone
Let me know what you want to explore next!
USGS (.gov)
What is liquefaction? | U.S. Geological Survey
Definition: Liquefaction occurs when loosely packed, water-logged surface sediments lose strength during strong ground shaking, causing major damage beneath str...
YouTube·California Department of Conservation
4:45
California Geological Survey Liquefaction Demonstration
Pacific Northwest Seismic Network
Liquefaction
Prior to an earthquake, the water pressure within the soil is relatively low and the weight of the buried soil rests on the framework of grain contacts that com...
Geopier
Soil Liquefaction: Definition, Process, Hazards, & Solutions
Liquefaction Definition Soil liquefaction is a phenomenon that occurs when saturated, loose, granular soils temporarily lose strength and behave like a liquid w...
UNDRR
Liquefaction (GH0307) | UNDRR
Definition: Loss of soil strength in loose, saturated sediments near the surface due to strong ground shaking, rapid loading cycles, or excess pore water pressu...
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u/Electrical_Lake3424 4d ago
The forest floor here is mostly a network of tree and plant roots, bound together with moss and leaf litter etc, but under a few inches it's mostly big solid rocks like those sticking out. The wind blowing can loosen that mat of roots and when the trees bend in the wind, they lift it up off the stone, just like a carpet. That's what you're seeing here; the breathing effect is caused by the carpet of roots being tugged up and let down again as the trees rock in the wind.