Footage Of "Breathing Forest" Goes Viral, And People Are Terrified

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Video Of "Breathing Forest" Goes Viral, And People Are Terrified

Daniel Holland - Twitter via Tonie (The Weather Network)

Our eyes are no stranger to unique natural phenomena, and thanks to social media, we have the chance to learn more about the incredible things that happen on our planet.

For example, square waves and icebergs are just two of many bizarre things that occur on Earth, and they've recently been getting a lot of attention online.

These perfectly square icebergs look like they've been carved by hand, when in fact, they achieve this shape when they're calved from the ice shelf.

As for square waves, also known as a cross sea, they form when waves collide from different angles and form squares in the ocean. If you're in the water during this time, you should get out immediately, because square waves cause powerful currents that can capsize and throw large ships up in the air!

square waves and ice
Square iceberg (left), square waves (right). NASA ICE / Wikipedia

Now another natural phenomenon is getting a lot of buzz on social media platforms, and it's being called the "breathing forest."

Twitter user Daniel Holland shared a video of a forest in Quebec, Canada "breathing in and out."

The footage has gone viral since it was posted on October 20, and more than four million people have watched the incredible video.

In the short clip below, you can see the ground lift up and down several times.

Some social media users are stunned, and others are terrified by this bizarre phenomenon.

"I would have freaked out!"

"This is both terrifying and interesting at the same time."

Some users just had a good laugh.

There's an interesting explanation as to why this forest look like it's breathing, and it's not an earthquake.

While plants do breathe through photosynthesis - by giving out carbon dioxide and absorb oxygen from the air - the forest can't actually move like the way you saw in the video.

This inhaling and exhaling is just an optical illusion. The forest appears like it's breathing when the ground becomes saturated.

"During a rain and windstorm event the ground becomes saturated, 'loosening' the soil's cohesion with the roots as the wind is blowing on a tree's crown," Mark Vanderwouw, a certified arborist in Canada, told The Weather Network.

"The wind is trying to 'push' the trees over, and as the force is transferred to the roots, the ground begins to 'heave'. If the winds were strong enough and lasted long enough more roots would start to break and eventually some of the trees would topple."

Here's another piece of footage from a different "breathing forest."

[H/T: Time / Live Science / The Weather Network]

Have you ever seen a forest "breathe" like this before?

Moojan has been a writer at Shared for a year. When she's not on the lookout for viral content, she's looking at cute animal photos. Reach her at moojan@shared.com.