Marble Bar, Western Australia

Marble Bar Western Australia
Marble Bar in 1898
Marble Bar
Coordinates	21°10′12″S 119°44′49″E / 21.17000°S 119.74694°E / -21.17000; 119.74694Coordinates: 21°10′12″S 119°44′49″E / 21.17000°S 119.74694°E / -21.17000; 119.74694
Population	208 (2011 census)[1]
Established	1893
Postcode(s)	6760
Elevation	178 m (584 ft)
Location	1,476 km (917 mi) North East of Perth 152 km (94 mi) South East of Port Hedland 242 km (150 mi) North of Newman
LGA(s)	Shire of East Pilbara
State electorate(s)	Pilbara
Federal Division(s)	Durack
Mean max temp Mean min temp Annual rainfall 35.3 °C 96 °F 19.9 °C 68 °F 361.7 mm 14.2 in

Marble Bar is a town and rock formation in the Pilbara region of north-western Western Australia. It is well known for its extremely hot weather.

History

The town was officially gazetted in 1893 following the discovery of gold in the area in 1890 by a prospector named Francis Jenkins who is remembered by the name of the town's main street.^[2] The name Marble Bar was derived from a nearby jasper bar mistaken for marble and now known as Marble Bar, which runs across the bed of the Coongan River.

In 1891 the town boasted a population in excess of 5,000 as it experienced a rush on the goldfields.^[3]

By 1895 the town had its Government offices built; these are now National Trust buildings. Cut from local stone, the buildings still stand today.

Possibly the most famous building in the town is the Ironclad hotel built in the 1890s, constructed of corrugated Iron, and given the name by American miners who were reminded of the Ironclad ships from the United States. In 2006, the Ironclad hotel was listed on the Western Australian register of heritage places.^[4]

Several large gold nuggets were discovered as a result of the goldrush. The 333 ounce Little Hero nugget, the 413 ounce Bobby Dazzler and the 332 ounce General Gordon nugget were all found in the goldfields around the town.

During World War II, United States Army Air Forces and Royal Australian Air Force heavy bombers were based 25 kilometres (16 mi) away as the crow flies at Corunna Downs Airfield. Allied airmen from the base attacked Japanese forces as far away as Borneo.

It had a railway connecting with Port Hedland up until the early 1950s, which can be seen as a narrow gauge precursor to the network of standard gauge iron-ore railways that have since been created across the Pilbara.

Climate

Marble Bar has an arid climate with very hot summers and mild to warm winters. Most of the annual rainfall occurs in the summer. The town set a world record of most consecutive days of 100 °F (37.8 °C) or above, during a period of 160 days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924.^[5] Although annual temperatures indicate Marble Bar to be within the tropics thanks due a July mean at 19 °C (66 °F), it is a long way off qualifying as a tropical climate, due to the high precipitation requirements for hot-weather climates to sustain tropical vegetation.

During December and January, temperatures in excess of 45 °C (113 °F) are common, and the average maximum temperature exceeds normal human body temperature for 6 months each year. Marble Bar receives 159.6 clear days annually. Dewpoint in the summers is between 10 and 15 °C (50 and 59 °F). Rainfall is erratic and sparse, falling largely between December and April. As little as 71.1 mm (2.8 in) can fall in a year, however during heavy wet seasons when the monsoon reaches well south into the Pilbara, as much as 797.9 mm (31.4 in) can fall annually. The most rain recorded in a month is 417.4 mm (16.4 in) in March 2007.^[6][7]

North Pole

An ironically named locality nearby is known as North Pole (21° 05' S. 119° 22' E.), no doubt for its heat. It is the location of rock formations considered to have evidence that puts the origin of life on earth back to 3,400–3,500 million years ago, due to stromatolites in particular rock sequences.^{[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]} However this is disputed, and it is argued that stromatolites older than 3,200 mya are not the result of living organisms (the definition of stromatolites includes both living and abiotic causes), the small conical structures in the Strelley Pool formation (Warrawoona Group) being formed by evaporation and a dome structure from the North Pole chert (also Warrawoona Group) being formed by soft-sediment deformation.^[18][19]

See also

• List of weather records
• Pilbara historical timeline
• Pilbara newspapers
• Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia
• Warrawoona Group - in relation to North Pole findings

References

Further reading

• Edwards, Hugh Gold dust and iron mountains : Marble Bar & beyond : the story of the Eastern Pilbara Swanbourne, W.A. : H. Edwards, 1993. ISBN 0-646-14570-3 "Produced by the East Pilbara Shire for the centenary of Marble Bar, 1893-1993".