Sinkhole risk in Dixie County, FL: Sinkhole country

Sinkhole country

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

On soluble rock: 99%
At or near the surface: 93%
Buried under cover: 5%

What this means before you buy

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

Standard Florida homeowners policies cover only catastrophic ground cover collapse; full sinkhole coverage is a separately priced option insurers must offer.

That works out to roughly 694 of Dixie County's 705 square miles on soluble rock, 659 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 17,614 residents (25 per square mile), there is effectively nowhere in the county off the soluble rock, town or country. The figures come from 273 map points about 1.6 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Worth reading for this county: what Florida insurers have to cover, and why gypsum and salt move faster than limestone.

Counties around Dixie County

The closest county with no soluble rock mapped is Gulf County, FL, about 124 miles west. 4 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

Gilchrist County, FL 29 mi northeast · 52% at surface
Lafayette County, FL 30 mi north · 41% at surface
Levy County, FL 31 mi southeast · 67% at surface
Taylor County, FL 37 mi northwest · 54% at surface
Suwannee County, FL 46 mi north · 40% at surface
Alachua County, FL 53 mi east · 78% at surface

Which formation it is

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Ocala Limestone (limestone), Eocene in age, covering about 99% of the county.

The county also lies over the Floridan shelf, 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 Florida

Dixie County ranks 3 of 67 in Florida for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 98% of US counties on that measure.