"Earth is breathing" in Nova Scotia - Signs of an earthquake?

[Gawan]

Sott posted an interesting article where it looks like if the earth is breathing or shaking in a part of Nova Scotia:

Forest ground moves in Nova Scotia, Canada


And here is the video:

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It looks genuine to me, nonetheless it raises also some questions. The guy who posted it looks also normal and didn't post any strange things on his facebook page as far as I could see.

Sott posted in the comment also the following videos:

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[Mal7]

In my opinion, the first video is not a seismic phenomenon, but the moving ground is a thick mat of soil, leaf-litter, and roots. I think there is a stream running under the green moss, which may have carved away much of the soil around the tree's roots, leaving them unstable and easily "swayable". Soil could have been washed away creating a cavity beneath the visible surface. The degree of movement seems to correlate with the degree of wind noise picked up by the camera's microphone.

The second two videos are both stated to be of an earthquake in Japan on 11 March 2011. The earthquake is actually occurring in the early parts of the video, and the later parts show continuing affects of liquefaction.

Earthquakes vary not just in intensity, but the kind of movements they generate. This could be sharp and violent, or long and rolling; or it could be an up-and-down vs. a sideways movement. In the February 2011 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake, there was a lot of liquefaction, and large quantities of water and grey silt came up out of cracks and holes in the ground.

 

[Laura]

Yes, I was pretty freaked out by the tree/forest floor video but then a number of people on FB pointed out that this is generally a natural phenomenon in boggy wooded areas.

If you watch the upper part of the trees in the video, you will see that the wind is blowing and the movement of the trees in the wind can cause their roots to move in the loose, boggy earth making it look like it is "breathing."

 

[Keit]

Yes, I was pretty freaked out by the tree/forest floor video but then a number of people on FB pointed out that this is generally a natural phenomenon in boggy wooded areas.

Yeah, that could be it, since apparently this forest is near a community Apple River, and that's what wiki says about it:

The community is located on two sides of the Apple River, a small river which widens dramatically to produce a large, shallow tidal harbour facing Chignecto Bay, an arm of the Bay of Fundy. The river and harbour are bordered by extensive tidal salt marshes, protected by Cape Capstan to the East and a long sand bar to the west.

A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open salt water or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides.

Looks very strange non the less!

 

[Buddy]

I don't know about Earth breathing in terms of what the videos show, but I do have an idea related to part of the topic title. I think the part of the biosphere represented as the organic 'skin' of the planet breathes and its trees are like our lungs.

Back when I was researching fractal structures, I found a related picture of the human lungs that, when you turn it upside down, resembles the structure of a lot of trees (pic attached). I haven't been able to look at trees as anything else but 'lungs' since then!