Sinkhole risk in Jones County, TX: Sinkhole country

Sinkhole country

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

On soluble rock: 55%
At or near the surface: 55%
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 506 of Jones County's 929 square miles on soluble rock, 506 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 20,850 residents (22 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 Jones County

The closest county with no soluble rock mapped is Archer County, TX, about 91 miles northeast. 4 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

Shackelford County, TX 31 mi east · 54% at surface
Fisher County, TX 31 mi west · 59% at surface
Taylor County, TX 31 mi south · 66% at surface
Haskell County, TX 31 mi north · 50% at surface
Stonewall County, TX 37 mi northwest · 82% at surface
Callahan County, TX 43 mi southeast · 38% at surface

The rock underneath

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Clear Fork Group (mudstone), Permian; Leonard Series in age, covering about 48% of the county. Next is the San Angelo Formation at 4%.

52% 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

Jones County ranks 43 of 254 in Texas for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 88% of US counties on that measure.