SinkholeOdds

Sinkhole risk in Yazoo County, MS: 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
3%
At or near the surface
3%
Buried under cover
0%

The next step for one property

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

That works out to roughly 24 of Yazoo County's 922 square miles on soluble rock, 24 of them with the rock at or near the surface. With about 23,024 residents (25 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 585 map points about 1.3 miles apart, so a pocket smaller than that can be missed or overstated.

Two things to read before deciding: why gypsum and salt move faster than limestone, and how these percentages are measured.

Counties around Yazoo County

The nearest county rated sinkhole country is Oktibbeha County, MS, about 99 miles northeast. None of the 6 closest counties land in the same band, so Yazoo County stands out from its surroundings.

What Yazoo County is built on

The largest mapped soluble unit here is the Vicksburg group and Chickasawhay limestone (limestone), Oligocene in age, covering about 3% of the county.

The county also lies over the Gulf Coast salt domes, 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 Mississippi

Yazoo County ranks 29 of 82 in Mississippi for soluble rock at the surface, and sits above 59% of US counties on that measure.