Sinkhole risk in Uinta County, WY: No soluble rock mapped

The next step for one property

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 10 of Uinta County's 2,082 square miles on soluble rock, 10 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 20,621 residents (10 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 390 map points about 2.3 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 Uinta County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Emery County, UT, about 157 miles south. None of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so Uinta County stands out from its surroundings.

• Summit County, UT 36 mi southwest · 6% at surface
• Rich County, UT 42 mi northwest · 9% at surface
• Morgan County, UT 55 mi west · 9% at surface
• Daggett County, UT 61 mi southeast · 5% at surface
• Lincoln County, WY 66 mi north · 27% at surface
• Weber County, UT 68 mi west · 9% at surface

Which formation it is

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Green River Formation: Wilkins Peak Member (fine-grained mixed clastic), Eocene in age, covering about under 1% of the county.

The county also lies over the Wyoming Thrust belt, 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 Wyoming

Uinta County ranks 22 of 23 in Wyoming for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 53% of US counties on that measure.

• Crook County 42%
• Lincoln County 27%
• Washakie County 26%
• Big Horn County 25%
• Sublette County 20%