Sinkhole risk in Jones County, MS: 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 6 of Jones County's 695 square miles on soluble rock, 6 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 65,837 residents (95 per square mile), homes are spread across towns and farmland, and a mapped unit may or may not reach the developed parts. The figures come from 391 map points about 1.3 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Worth reading for this county: why gypsum and salt move faster than limestone, and how these percentages are measured.

Counties around Jones County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Noxubee County, MS, about 109 miles north. 3 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band; the ground changes quickly around here.

Covington County, MS 22 mi west · 0% at surface
Jasper County, MS 28 mi north · 21% at surface
Wayne County, MS 29 mi east · 17% at surface
Forrest County, MS 30 mi south · 0% at surface
Perry County, MS 33 mi south · 0% at surface
Smith County, MS 34 mi northwest · 13% at surface

What Jones County is built on

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Vicksburg group and Chickasawhay limestone (limestone), Oligocene in age, covering about under 1% of the county.

The county also lies over the Gulf Coast salt domes, 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 Mississippi

Jones County ranks 33 of 82 in Mississippi for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 54% of US counties on that measure.