SinkholeOdds

Sinkhole risk in Blaine County, ID: Pockets of it

Pockets of it

Soluble rock at the surface or under thin cover in part of the county.

On soluble rock
16%
At or near the surface
16%
Buried under cover
0%

What this means before you buy

Check the parcel against your state survey sinkhole map, and ask for an inspection if cracks, depressions or sticking doors show up.

That works out to roughly 411 of Blaine County's 2,638 square miles on soluble rock, 411 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 25,261 residents (10 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 288 map points about 3.0 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Worth reading for this county: the signs to look for and how an inspection works, and how these percentages are measured.

Counties around Blaine County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Emery County, UT, about 346 miles southeast. 1 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band; the ground changes quickly around here.

Which formation it is

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Sandstone, limestone, siltstone, shale, and conglomerate; Lower Permian to Middle Pennsylvanian deltaic turbidites; central Idaho; (sandstone), Early Permian in age, covering about 15% of the county. Next is the Quartzite, marble, Calc-silicate rock, schist, and meta-conglomerate; Ordovician to Middle Proterozoic metasedimentary rocks; central Idaho, Pioneer Mountains metamorphic core complex at 1%.

Against the rest of Idaho

Blaine County ranks 9 of 44 in Idaho for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 72% of US counties on that measure.