Sinkhole risk in Butte 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: 24%
At or near the surface: 24%
Buried under cover: 0%

The next step for one property

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 526 of Butte County's 2,236 square miles on soluble rock, 526 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 2,735 residents (1 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 251 map points about 3.0 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Two things to read before deciding: the signs to look for and how an inspection works, and how these percentages are measured.

Counties around Butte County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Emery County, UT, about 347 miles south. 2 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band; the ground changes quickly around here.

Jefferson County, ID 44 mi east · 0% at surface
Blaine County, ID 44 mi southwest · 16% at surface
Bingham County, ID 51 mi southeast · 8% at surface
Clark County, ID 58 mi northeast · 14% at surface
Minidoka County, ID 62 mi south · 0% at surface
Custer County, ID 67 mi northwest · 15% at surface

What Butte County is built on

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Limestone, shale, siltstone, chert, and conglomerate; Mississippian western turbiditic flysch to eastern shallow-water carbonates; east-central Idaho (limestone), Mississippian in age, covering about 12% of the county. Next is the Limestone, dolostone, sandstone, siltstone, and chert; Lower Permian to Lower Pennsylvanian marine continental-shelf deposits; east-central Idaho at 6%.

Against the rest of Idaho

Butte County ranks 6 of 44 in Idaho for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 76% of US counties on that measure.