Structural Geology & Tectonics @ ETHZ

Leif Tokle graduated from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities in 2012. During the summers of 2011 and 2012, Leif worked as an undergraduate researcher in the rock deformation laboratory at Brown University. This experience prompted Leif to pursue a M.S. at Tromsø University where he worked with Prof. Holger Stünitz in the rock deformation laboratory studying the influence of muscovite on quartzite rheology. In 2019, Leif received his Ph.D. from Brown University under the supervision of Prof. Greg Hirth focusing on quartz and ilmenite rheology. Leif’s interests are focused on understanding micromechanical processes using a combination of microstructural and mechanical analyses from high-temperature and high-pressure experiments. Leif also utilizes field observations from naturally deformed rocks to improve laboratory-derived deformation mechanism models (e.g. “flow laws”). Currently, Leif is conducting deformation experiments on sodic amphibole-bearing blueschists as well as fieldwork in the Tauern Window to constrain the rheology of the subduction zone interface at blueschist and eclogite facies.