SinkholeOdds

Sinkhole risk in Pike County, KY: 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 3 of Pike County's 786 square miles on soluble rock, 3 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 55,430 residents (71 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 513 map points about 1.2 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 Pike County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Russell County, VA, about 42 miles southeast. 6 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

The rock underneath

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Pennington Formation, Newman Limestone, Fort Payne Chert, Grainger Formation, Sunbury Shale, Berea Sandstone, and Bedford Shale, undivided; Pennington Formation locally includes sandstone tongue of Lee Formation (limestone), Devonian to Pennsylvanian in age, covering about under 1% of the county.

Against the rest of Kentucky

Pike County ranks 91 of 120 in Kentucky for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 52% of US counties on that measure.