Sinkhole risk in Bourbon County, KS: Sinkhole country

Sinkhole country

Soluble rock at or near the surface across much of the county.

On soluble rock: 68%
At or near the surface: 68%
Buried under cover: 0%

What to do about a house in Bourbon County

Get a sinkhole or geotechnical inspection before buying, building or adding weight to a foundation.

That works out to roughly 433 of Bourbon County's 635 square miles on soluble rock, 433 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 14,424 residents (23 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 414 map points about 1.2 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 Bourbon County

The closest county with no soluble rock mapped is Crawford County, AR, about 161 miles south. 5 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

Crawford County, KS 24 mi south · 56% at surface
Allen County, KS 25 mi west · 90% at surface
Linn County, KS 25 mi north · 69% at surface
Vernon County, MO 28 mi east · 9% at surface
Neosho County, KS 32 mi southwest · 78% at surface
Anderson County, KS 35 mi northwest · 55% at surface

What Bourbon County is built on

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Marmaton Group (shale), Early Pennsylvanian- Desmoinesian in age, covering about 48% of the county. Next is the Kansas City Group at 20%.

Against the rest of Kansas

Bourbon County ranks 16 of 105 in Kansas for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 92% of US counties on that measure.