Sinkhole risk in Pershing County, NV: Pockets of it

Pockets of it

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

On soluble rock: 16%
At or near the surface: 16%
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 990 of Pershing County's 6,037 square miles on soluble rock, 990 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 6,536 residents (1 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 342 map points about 4.2 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 the signs to look for and how an inspection works.

Counties around Pershing County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Emery County, UT, about 420 miles east. None of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so Pershing County stands out from its surroundings.

Churchill County, NV 63 mi south · 6% at surface
Humboldt County, NV 69 mi north · 8% at surface
Washoe County, NV 69 mi west · 2% at surface
Lander County, NV 81 mi southeast · 8% at surface
Storey County, NV 91 mi southwest · 7% at surface
Lyon County, NV 107 mi southwest · 9% at surface

Which formation it is

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Shale, mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, and carbonate rock; sparse volcanic rock (claystone), Late Triassic to Early Jurassic in age, covering about 9% of the county. Next is the Tuffaceous sedimentary rocks at 4%.

9% 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 Nevada

Pershing County ranks 5 of 17 in Nevada for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 72% of US counties on that measure.