SinkholeOdds

Sinkhole risk in Yavapai County, AZ: 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
12%
At or near the surface
12%
Buried under cover
0%

What to do about a house in Yavapai County

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

That works out to roughly 950 of Yavapai County's 8,123 square miles on soluble rock, 950 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 252,013 residents (31 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 265 map points about 5.5 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 Yavapai County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Emery County, UT, about 319 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 Mississippian, Devonian, and Cambrian sedimentary rocks (sandstone), Cambrian, Devonian, and Mississippi in age, covering about 7% of the county. Next is the Permian to Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks at 4%.

4% 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 Verde 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 Arizona

Yavapai County ranks 5 of 15 in Arizona for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 69% of US counties on that measure.