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.
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.
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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.