SinkholeOdds

Sinkhole risk in Rice County, KS: Mostly deep or small

Mostly deep or small

Some soluble rock, mostly deeply buried or in a small share of the county.

On soluble rock
2%
At or near the surface
2%
Buried under cover
0%

What this means before you buy

Sinkholes are uncommon here; watch for new depressions after heavy rain or leaking pipes.

That works out to roughly 12 of Rice County's 726 square miles on soluble rock, 12 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 9,284 residents (13 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 385 map points about 1.4 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 how these percentages are measured.

Counties around Rice County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Marion County, KS, about 60 miles east. 1 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band; the ground changes quickly around here.

The rock underneath

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Nippewalla Group (siltstone), Late Permian- Custerian to Cimarronian in age, covering about 1% of the county. Next is the Sumner Group at under 1%.

2% of the county sits on gypsum or salt, which dissolves in years rather than millennia. That share matters more than its size suggests.

The county also lies over the Permian Basin, Anadarko Basin,Dalhart Basin, Palo Duro Basin, a deep salt or gypsum basin. Deep beds rarely cause surface collapse on their own, but wells and mining into them have.

Against the rest of Kansas

Rice County ranks 90 of 105 in Kansas for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 57% of US counties on that measure.