Sinkhole risk in Rawlins 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: 24%
At or near the surface: 24%
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 251 of Rawlins County's 1,069 square miles on soluble rock, 251 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 2,432 residents (2 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 400 map points about 1.6 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Counties around Rawlins County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Harlan County, NE, about 93 miles east. 5 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so this is a regional pattern rather than a local quirk.

Hitchcock County, NE 27 mi north · 20% at surface
Thomas County, KS 30 mi south · 8% at surface
Decatur County, KS 33 mi east · 19% at surface
Cheyenne County, KS 35 mi west · 19% at surface
Red Willow County, NE 42 mi northeast · 16% at surface
Dundy County, NE 42 mi northwest · 17% at surface

Which formation it is

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Ogallala Formation (arkose), Miocene in age, covering about 24% of the county.

Against the rest of Kansas

Rawlins County ranks 49 of 105 in Kansas for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 76% of US counties on that measure.