Sinkhole risk in Pitt County, NC: Sinkhole country

Sinkhole country

Soluble rock at or near the surface across much of the county.

On soluble rock: 86%
At or near the surface: 86%
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 558 of Pitt County's 652 square miles on soluble rock, 558 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 180,783 residents (277 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 572 map points about 1.1 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Two things to read before deciding: the signs to look for and how an inspection works, and how these percentages are measured.

Counties around Pitt County

The closest county with no soluble rock mapped is Franklin County, NC, about 61 miles northwest. 5 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

Greene County, NC 19 mi southwest · 82% at surface
Martin County, NC 23 mi northeast · 84% at surface
Edgecombe County, NC 26 mi northwest · 62% at surface
Lenoir County, NC 28 mi southwest · 71% at surface
Beaufort County, NC 31 mi east · 41% at surface
Wilson County, NC 32 mi west · 68% at surface

What Pitt County is built on

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Yorktown Formation and Duplin Formation, Undivided (clay or mud), Tertiary in age, covering about 85% of the county. Next is the Peedee Formation at under 1%.

Against the rest of North Carolina

Pitt County ranks 6 of 100 in North Carolina for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 96% of US counties on that measure.