Sinkhole risk in Hitchcock County, NE: Pockets of it
Pockets of it
Soluble rock at the surface or under thin cover in part of the county.
- On soluble rock
- 20%
- At or near the surface
- 20%
- Buried under cover
- 0%
What this means before you buy
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 141 of Hitchcock County's 710 square miles on soluble rock, 141 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 2,460 residents (3 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 400 map points about 1.3 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.
Read next: why gypsum and salt move faster than limestone, and the signs to look for and how an inspection works.
Counties around Hitchcock County
The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Harlan County, NE, about 87 miles east. 4 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.
- Hayes County, NE 25 mi north · under 1% at surface
- Rawlins County, KS 27 mi south · 24% at surface
- Red Willow County, NE 30 mi east · 16% at surface
- Dundy County, NE 34 mi west · 17% at surface
- Decatur County, KS 41 mi southeast · 19% at surface
- Frontier County, NE 42 mi northeast · under 1% at surface
What Hitchcock County is built on
The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Pierre Shale (shale), Late Cretaceous in age, covering about 20% of the county.
20% 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 Nebraska
Hitchcock County ranks 17 of 93 in Nebraska for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 74% of US counties on that measure.
- Hamilton County 80%
- Adams County 79%
- Merrick County 79%
- Webster County 78%
- Franklin County 78%