Sinkhole risk in Denton County, TX: Pockets of it

Pockets of it

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

On soluble rock: 41%
At or near the surface: 41%
Buried under cover: 0%

What to do about a house in Denton County

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 359 of Denton County's 879 square miles on soluble rock, 359 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 1,045,120 residents (1,189 per square mile), most of the county is built up, so a mapped unit is likely to sit under somebody's street. The figures come from 381 map points about 1.5 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 Denton County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Baylor County, TX, about 124 miles west. 6 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

Cooke County, TX 30 mi north · 52% at surface
Wise County, TX 31 mi west · 24% at surface
Collin County, TX 31 mi east · 47% at surface
Tarrant County, TX 32 mi south · 41% at surface
Dallas County, TX 36 mi southeast · 39% at surface
Grayson County, TX 39 mi northeast · 36% at surface

What Denton County is built on

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Fort Worth Limestone and Duck Creek Formation, undivided (limestone), Early Cretaceous in age, covering about 23% of the county. Next is the Pawpaw Formation, Weno Limestone, and Denton Clay, undivided at 11%.

Against the rest of Texas

Denton County ranks 60 of 254 in Texas for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 84% of US counties on that measure.