Sinkhole risk in Idaho County, ID: No soluble rock mapped

No soluble rock mapped

No soluble bedrock mapped.

On soluble rock: under 1%
At or near the surface: under 1%
Buried under cover: 0%

What this means before you buy

No soluble bedrock is mapped here, so natural sinkholes are unlikely. Collapses from broken pipes or old mines are a separate risk.

That works out to roughly 34 of Idaho County's 8,477 square miles on soluble rock, 34 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 17,912 residents (2 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 260 map points about 5.7 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Two things to read before deciding: how these percentages are measured, and the warning signs that apply anywhere.

Counties around Idaho County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Emery County, UT, about 531 miles southeast. 1 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band; the ground changes quickly around here.

Lewis County, ID 53 mi northwest · under 1% at surface
Clearwater County, ID 58 mi north · 0% at surface
Ravalli County, MT 67 mi east · 5% at surface
Valley County, ID 69 mi south · 1% at surface
Nez Perce County, ID 70 mi northwest · 3% at surface
Adams County, ID 83 mi southwest · under 1% at surface

The rock underneath

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Limestone, slate; Upper Triassic greenschist-facies metamorphic rocks; western Idaho, Blue Mountains island-arc complex; (limestone), Late Triassic in age, covering about under 1% of the county.

Against the rest of Idaho

Idaho County ranks 25 of 44 in Idaho for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 52% of US counties on that measure.