SinkholeOdds

Sinkhole risk in Wayne County, UT: Pockets of it

Pockets of it

Soluble rock at the surface or under thin cover in part of the county.

On soluble rock
22%
At or near the surface
22%
Buried under cover
0%

What this means before you buy

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 541 of Wayne County's 2,461 square miles on soluble rock, 541 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 2,608 residents (1 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 368 map points about 2.6 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 the signs to look for and how an inspection works.

Counties around Wayne County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Emery County, UT, about 54 miles north. 1 of the 6 closest counties land in the same band; the ground changes quickly around here.

Which formation it is

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Jurassic (1) sedimentary rocks in southeastern Utah (sandstone), Middle to Late Jurassic in age, covering about 15% of the county. Next is the Jurassic (1) sedimentary rocks in southeastern Utah at 15%.

21% 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 Paradox 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 Utah

Wayne County ranks 4 of 29 in Utah for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 76% of US counties on that measure.