Dropping or rising. At the borders of the sea and land plates the sea plates are slipping slowly below the continental crust. Pieces of the land crust get caught and dragged down. Over long periods of time you'll see forested land get dragged down below sea level and flooded to die.

The a rupture will occur, and in the biggest earthquakes you can get a fault that can rise 20 meters almost instantly causing trillions of tons of ocean to suddenly have to go somewhere. After the quake and tsunami you'll see the flooded forests can be many meters above land were new forest will grow and slowly start sinking again.