| Marble Bar Western Australia |
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Marble Bar in 1898 |
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Marble Bar
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| Population: | 194 (2006 Census)[1] | ||||||
| Established: | 1893 | ||||||
| Postcode: | 6760 | ||||||
| Elevation: | 178 m (584 ft) | ||||||
| Location: |
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| LGA: | Shire of East Pilbara | ||||||
| State District: | Pilbara | ||||||
| Federal Division: | Durack | ||||||
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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.
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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.
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.
Marble Bar has an arid climate with very hot summers and mild to warm winters. The town set a world record of most consecutive days of maximum temperatures of 37.8 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) or more, during a period of 160 such days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924.[5]
During December and January, temperatures in excess of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) are common, and the average maximum temperature exceeds normal human body temperature for 6 months each year. Rainfall mostly occurs in the summer months.
| Climate data for Marble Bar, Western Australia | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 49.2 (120.6) |
48.3 (118.9) |
46.7 (116.1) |
45.0 (113.0) |
39.5 (103.1) |
35.8 (96.4) |
35.0 (95.0) |
37.2 (99.0) |
42.6 (108.7) |
45.6 (114.1) |
47.2 (117.0) |
48.3 (118.9) |
49.2 (120.6) |
| Average high °C (°F) | 41.0 (105.8) |
39.8 (103.6) |
39.0 (102.2) |
36.0 (96.8) |
30.7 (87.3) |
27.1 (80.8) |
26.8 (80.2) |
29.6 (85.3) |
33.9 (93.0) |
37.6 (99.7) |
40.5 (104.9) |
41.6 (106.9) |
35.3 (95.5) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 26.1 (79.0) |
25.7 (78.3) |
24.8 (76.6) |
21.4 (70.5) |
16.6 (61.9) |
13.2 (55.8) |
11.7 (53.1) |
13.3 (55.9) |
16.7 (62.1) |
20.3 (68.5) |
23.6 (74.5) |
25.5 (77.9) |
19.9 (67.8) |
| Record low °C (°F) | 18.9 (66.0) |
13.9 (57.0) |
15.0 (59.0) |
10.0 (50.0) |
5.6 (42.1) |
1.1 (34.0) |
2.2 (36.0) |
3.9 (39.0) |
5.6 (42.1) |
10.0 (50.0) |
14.4 (57.9) |
17.0 (62.6) |
1.1 (34.0) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 76.3 (3.004) |
87.8 (3.457) |
56.7 (2.232) |
21.9 (0.862) |
23.0 (0.906) |
23.0 (0.906) |
12.6 (0.496) |
6.4 (0.252) |
0.9 (0.035) |
3.8 (0.15) |
9.1 (0.358) |
39.6 (1.559) |
361.7 (14.24) |
| Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology[6] | |||||||||||||
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 mya, due to stromatolites in particular rock sequences.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] 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.[17][18]
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