Marble Bar, East Pilbara Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Marble Bar	- not defined -
East Pilbara Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

'The gold miner's career is invariably punctuated by prodigal excesses, hard drinking, gross immorality, and the habitual use of indescribely horrible language. I emphatically affirm no-where amongst the members of the great Anglo-Saxon family are to be found men of coarser fibre. Possessing the morals of apes, they have a profound contempt for morality, decency, and religion. It is impossible to speak in terms of sufficient severity of the foul, profane, and obscene expressions which assail the ear at every turn'

Physician J.A. Langdon in 1900 was less than impressed when he visited Marble Bar. Do not even get him started on gold miner drinking and their 'immoral' sexual relations with aboriginal women. The odd four letter word these days does not put off people visiting this area to go fossicking.

Jasper locality (the "marble" is in fact jasper). There is a $10,000 fine for removing material from the location, but a public fossicking site is nearby (Kim Macdonald information).

Gold was discovered near Marble Bar in 1891 (see Stray Shot Mindat locality), and a town gazetted by 1893. In 1891 there were 5,000 gold miners on the fields. The Ironclad Hotel in the main street was built in the 1890's, and was named by American miners, as it reminded them of Ironclad ships in the United States.

The best time to visit is the Australian winter months. It can get very hot in Marble Bar in summer. Across 1923-1924, the town set a world record for the most consecutive days over 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C)- 160 days.

Facilities are limited and you need to be self sufficient with accommodation. Population 208 (2011).

Just out of town is a jasper bar which is the town's main attraction, and the geologic feature it is named after. A short drive south of the town is a small mineral specimen museum. Metal detecting can be undertaken at the Marble Bar Common, an area leased by the local community for tourists. It is one of the few in Western Australia, and shows an enlightened approach to tourism other towns should follow.

The area is very scenic, with desert mountain country, gorges and waterholes. Some of the areas, even near the town can be remote. Apart from the jasper fossicking site and the 'Common' near the town, there are no public fossicking sites in the region. Location details can be vague, and please keep in mind lease requirements, and fossicking licence rules. Beyond this the area provides the opportunity to explore where few fossickers have trodden before.

The Marble Bar area has produced over 1.50 tonnes of gold, mainly before 1950. Gold has come from 0.15 to 2 metre thick quartz veins with a shallow westerly dip. The veins are in a north-south trending unit of carbonated chloritic schist of the Duffer Formation. The veins are associated with dolerite sills, with gold restricted to the vein margins. Unoxidised ores contain pyrite, chalcopyrite and galena.

Satellite images for the Marble Bar area will often show large burned sections. These are sometimes caused by people with metal detectors, as burning the spinifex makes it easier. These fires often get out of control burning large areas, and in part makes people conducting this hobby unwelcome in certain sections of gold fields communities.

Geochronology

Mineralization age: Mesoarchean : 2868 ± 53 Ma to 2830 ± 30 Ma

Important note: This table is based only on rock and mineral ages recorded on mindat.org for this locality and is not necessarily a complete representation of the geochronology, but does give an indication of possible mineralization events relevant to this locality. As more age information is added this table may expand in the future. A break in the table simply indicates a lack of data entered here, not necessarily a break in the geologic sequence. Grey background entries are from different, related, localities.

Geologic Time				Rocks, Minerals and Events
Precambrian
	Archean
		Mesoarchean		ⓘ Muscovite 2830 ± 30 Ma Moolyella pegmatite field, Marble Bar, East Pilbara Shire, Western Australia, Australia ⓘ Cassiterite (youngest age) 2839 ± 16 Ma Moolyella pegmatite field, Marble Bar, East Pilbara Shire, Western Australia, Australia ⓘ Cassiterite (oldest age) 2868 ± 53 Ma Moolyella pegmatite field, Marble Bar, East Pilbara Shire, Western Australia, Australia

References

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