On degenerate geometric rank

A tensor of degenerate geometric rank corresponds to a linear space of matrices in which some locus of matrices of rank at most $r$ has unexpectedly large dimension. We prove a sufficient criterion for when such a tensor cannot be lifted to a larger tensor and characterize those tensors for which the degeneracy is caused by the rank $r=1$ locus. We also provide new examples of tensors with degenerate geometric rank stemming from nonlinear loci.