I'm Oliver Chen, a technical writer and content designer with 15+ years of experience explaining complex topics to technical and non-technical audiences alike. At Tremr, I combine that background with a deep personal interest in earthquake science to make seismic activity understandable and accessible.
For the past 15 years, I've worked in technology companies, helping engineers, product teams, and designers communicate clearly. My roles — technical writer, UX writer, content designer — all centered on the same challenge: taking specialized knowledge and presenting it so that anyone, regardless of background, can understand it.
That experience taught me something crucial about communication: the best explanations are built from genuine understanding, not just regurgitation. Before I write about something, I need to know it well enough to answer the questions people actually ask.
I became seriously interested in earthquakes about five years ago. What started as curiosity about natural phenomena quickly became a genuine obsession. How does the Earth's crust actually work? Why do earthquakes happen where they do? What can we actually predict — and what's beyond current science?
I spent thousands of hours reading: USGS research, seismological papers, historical earthquake reports, government agencies' technical documentation, academic literature on plate tectonics and fault mechanics. I learned how to read seismograms, understand magnitude scales, distinguish between different earthquake types. I studied cases from the Niigata earthquake of 1964 to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake to the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes, looking for patterns in what causes damage and why some regions recover better than others.
The deeper I went, the clearer it became: earthquake science is fascinating, but the gap between what seismologists know and what the public understands is enormous. News reports say "M7.4 earthquake" and most people have no idea what that means or why it matters. Building codes shift in response to earthquake science, but people don't know those decisions exist. Communities sit on top of liquefaction zones without understanding the hazard.
I built Tremr because I wanted to close that gap. The live earthquake monitor lets anyone see seismic activity as it happens — USGS data, real-time, no delay. But data alone isn't enough. You can watch earthquakes move across the screen and still not understand why they matter or what's actually happening.
That's why I write these articles. Each one answers a specific question: What is liquefaction, and why does it matter? Can we predict earthquakes? What makes one fault produce M8 events and another produce M5? How do seismic waves travel? These aren't academic exercises — understanding these things actually changes how you think about earthquake risk.
All articles are researched from primary sources. When I cite a statistic, I'm pulling it from USGS data, official government agency reports, peer-reviewed seismological literature, or scientific consensus established through multiple independent sources. I check every claim, especially the ones that seem counterintuitive.
If something is uncertain or debated, I say so. If something is beyond current scientific knowledge, I don't speculate. The responsibility of communicating about earthquakes is too high to guess.
Articles are written for clarity, not brevity. I explain concepts from first principles so that someone without a seismology background can follow the logic. Jargon gets defined. Assumptions get spelled out. I'd rather use 200 words to explain something clearly than use 50 words and hope you understand.
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