[2] He was an instructor at North Cascades Institute,[3] and the director of the Mount Baker Volcano Research Center (now closed).
[14][15] Tucker's geologic research focuses on volcanic rocks in the Mount Baker region in the northwestern portion of the North Cascades.
[18][19][20] Tucker assisted USGS geologist Wes Hildreth in field work that resulted in the first detailed geologic map of Mount Baker.
[24][25] A focus of research has been a description of the entrance of the Sulphur Creek lava flow into Glacial Lake Baker 9800 years ago.
He also led a team that made an ice-radar transect[30] to reveal the thickness of ice filling the 12,000- year-old Carmelo Crater[31] at the summit plateau of Mount Baker.
[32][33][34][35] In 2012, Tucker, George Mustoe, and Keith Kemplin published a paper that described the fossil footprints believed to belong to Gastornis, also known as Diatryma,[36] a giant flightless bird in the Eocene Chuckanut Formation of Whatcom County.
It was preserved by a volunteer team coordinated by Tucker and flown off the mountainside using a large helicopter to Western Washington University's Geology Department.