The sand which forms the Sankoty aquifer was named after a railroad siding near Peoria, Illinois in 1946 by Leland Horberg.
The legal description given by Horberg in identifying the type locality for the Sankoty sand is T9N, R8E, Section 15 (Peoria County, Illinois).
The Sankoty sand is an unconsolidated deposit within a bedrock valley formerly occupied by the ancestral Mississippi River.
The Sankoty aquifer extends beyond the width of the Illinois River valley and occurs beneath the uplands.
The flat geography of the area leads to groundwater flows that are perpendicular to the Illinois River; however, municipal groundwater pumping in the Peoria, Illinois area and to a lesser degree agricultural pumping elsewhere over the aquifer has led to numerous cones of depression.