SinkholeOdds

Sinkhole risk in Morris County, KS: Pockets of it

Pockets of it

Soluble rock at the surface or under thin cover in part of the county.

On soluble rock
91%
At or near the surface
91%
Buried under cover
0%

The next step for one property

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 635 of Morris County's 695 square miles on soluble rock, 635 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 5,279 residents (8 per square mile), there is effectively nowhere in the county off the soluble rock, town or country. The figures come from 391 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 Morris County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Dickinson County, KS, about 30 miles northwest, close enough that the same rock may run under the county line. 4 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

What Morris County is built on

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Chase Group (shale), Early Permian - Gearyan in age, covering about 77% of the county. Next is the Sumner Group at 7%.

7% 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 Kansas

Morris County ranks 2 of 105 in Kansas for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 97% of US counties on that measure.