SinkholeOdds

Sinkhole risk in Adair County, MO: Mostly deep or small

Mostly deep or small

Some soluble rock, mostly deeply buried or in a small share of the county.

On soluble rock
1%
At or near the surface
0%
Buried under cover
1%

What to do about a house in Adair County

Sinkholes are uncommon here; watch for new depressions after heavy rain or leaking pipes.

That works out to roughly 6 of Adair County's 567 square miles on soluble rock. With about 25,660 residents (45 per square mile), much of the land is open, and the mapped rock may sit far from where people actually live. The figures come from 396 map points about 1.2 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Two things to read before deciding: why gypsum and salt move faster than limestone, and how these percentages are measured.

Counties around Adair County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Cooper County, MO, about 93 miles south. 4 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

The rock underneath

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Meramecian Series (limestone), Late Mississippian-Meramecian Series in age, covering about 1% of the county.

The county also lies over the Forest City Basin, a deep salt or gypsum basin. Deep beds rarely cause surface collapse on their own, but wells and mining into them have.

Against the rest of Missouri

Adair County ranks 76 of 115 in Missouri for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 0% of US counties on that measure.