Rate My Professor Jeffrey Rahl

Jeffrey Rahl is Professor of Earth and Environmental Geoscience at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, a position he has held since 2018, following promotions from Associate Professor (2012-2018) and Assistant Professor (2006-2012). He served as Department Head from 2019 to 2023 and Interim Department Head in 2024-2025. Prior to joining Washington and Lee, Rahl was a Turner Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan from 2005 to 2006. He earned a Ph.D. in Geology from Yale University in 2005, an M.Phil. in Geology from Yale in 2002, and a B.S. in Geology from the University of Dayton in 1999. Rahl teaches courses in general geology, history of geology, tectonics, and rocks and minerals.

His research focuses on tectonics, particularly the processes that control the formation, growth, and erosion of mountain belts. He utilizes field work, thermochronology, brittle structural analysis, and crystallographic fabric analysis with an emphasis on quartz. Specific areas of interest include the tectonic evolution of convergent wedges such as the Hellenic subduction wedge in Crete, Greece; sedimentary provenance studies using detrital thermochronology to examine long-term erosional histories and sediment dispersal patterns; and Dauphiné twinning in quartz for paleostress analysis. Rahl has secured funding from the National Science Foundation, including a 2018 grant for geological research and involvement in a 2025 award for acquiring a scanning electron microscope. Key publications include 'B-type olivine fabrics within the cumulate Buck Creek Ultramafic body emplaced during Southern Appalachian Taconic subduction' (Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 2025, co-authored with Peterson et al.); 'Structural analysis of brittle-plastic shear zones in the Sangre de Cristo Range, southern Colorado, U.S.: Superposition of Rio Grande rift extension on Laramide contraction' (Geosphere, 2025, co-authored with Sitar et al.); 'Influence of water on crystallographic orientation patterns in a naturally deformed quartzite' (Solid Earth, 2024); 'Foreland basin record of uplift and exhumation of the Eastern Cordillera, northwest Argentina' (Tectonics, 2018); 'Rhomb-dominated crystallographic preferred orientations in incipiently deformed quartz sandstone: A potential paleostress indicator for quartz-rich rocks' (Geology, 2018); and 'Quantifying transient erosion of orogens with detrital thermochronology from syntectonic basin deposits' (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2007). His publications have garnered nearly 1,000 citations. Rahl contributes to the Harte Center team and leads the Washington and Lee University pod in the URGE program.