Sinkhole risk in Haskell County, TX: Sinkhole country

Sinkhole country

Fast-dissolving gypsum or salt beds under a large part of the county.

On soluble rock: 50%
At or near the surface: 50%
Buried under cover: 0%

The next step for one property

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

That works out to roughly 447 of Haskell County's 903 square miles on soluble rock, 447 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 5,435 residents (6 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 396 map points about 1.5 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Two things to read before deciding: why gypsum and salt move faster than limestone, and the signs to look for and how an inspection works.

Counties around Haskell County

The closest county with no soluble rock mapped is Archer County, TX, about 67 miles northeast. 4 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

Knox County, TX 30 mi north · 55% at surface
Stonewall County, TX 30 mi west · 82% at surface
Throckmorton County, TX 30 mi east · 37% at surface
Jones County, TX 31 mi south · 55% at surface
Shackelford County, TX 37 mi southeast · 54% at surface
King County, TX 42 mi northwest · 97% at surface

What Haskell County is built on

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Clear Fork Group (mudstone), Permian; Leonard Series in age, covering about 42% of the county. Next is the Lueders Formation at 6%.

42% of the county sits on gypsum or salt, which dissolves in years rather than millennia. That share matters more than its size suggests.

Against the rest of Texas

Haskell County ranks 51 of 254 in Texas for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 87% of US counties on that measure.