Pilbara


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specimen from the Old Ridley Ranges, Pilbara
The Pilbara is a large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal peoples; its ancient landscapes; the red earth; and its vast mineral deposits, in particular iron ore. It is also a global biodiversity hotspot for subterranean fauna.

Definitions of the Pilbara region

At least two important but differing definitions of the region exist. It is one of nine regions of the Regional Development Commissions Act 1993, and is also the name of a bioregion under the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia.

General

The region, as defined by the Regional Development Commissions Act 1993, has an estimated population of 61,688. The Pilbara covers an area of 502,000 km2, which includes some of Earth's oldest rock formations. It includes landscapes of coastal plains and mountain ranges with cliffs and gorges. The major settlements of the region are Port Hedland, Karratha and Newman. The three main ports in this region are Port Hedland, Dampier and Port Walcott.
The area is known for its petroleum, natural gas and iron ore deposits, which contribute significantly to Australia's economy. Other than mining, pastoral activities as well as fishing and tourism are the main industries.

Local government

Local government in the Pilbara is currently:

Etymology

The Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre Wangka Maya says that the name for the Pilbara region derives from the Aboriginal word bilybara, meaning "dry" in the Nyamal and Banyjima languages.
Alternatively, the Western Australia Gas Industry claims that the region takes its name from pilbarra, an Aboriginal word for the mullet that is available in local waters. The Pilbara Creek is a tributary of the Yule River, a significant river in the region. Sea mullet and barramundi can still be caught in the Yule River today. Pilbara Goldfield, discovered in 1885, was named after the creek, and the name later became associated with the region.

History

The first European to explore the area was Francis Thomas Gregory in 1861. Settlements along the coast at Cossack, Roebourne and Shellborough were established over ensuing decades as agricultural and pastoral centres. However, after, these largely went into decline with the growth of other, more productive agricultural areas of the state. Mining in the area started in 1937 in Wittenoom Gorge, and following the discovery of iron ore in the Hamersley Ranges in the 1960s, the area became pivotal to the state's economy, and towns built to accommodate mining and allied services boomed. On 3 October 1952, the British conducted their first atomic bomb tests on the Montebello Islands as part of Operation Hurricane.

Aboriginal people

The Aboriginal population of the Pilbara considerably predates, by 30–40,000 years, the European colonisation of the region. Archaeological evidence indicates that people were living in the Pilbara even during the harsh climatic conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum. The early history of the first peoples is held within an oral tradition, archeological evidence and petroglyphs. Near the town of Dampier is a peninsula known as Murujuga, which contains a large collection of world heritage listed petroglyphs, dating back thousands of years. Rock art in the Pilbara appears to have been primarily etched into the hard rock surfaces, compared to predominantly paintings on the softer sandstone in the Kimberley. This does not preclude that painting was and is not performed in the Pilbara.
In 2006, it was estimated that 15% of the population of the Pilbara was of Indigenous background, approximately 6,000 people.
Working conditions in the pearling and pastoral industries for Aboriginals in the Pilbara region around 1900 have been described as slavery with no wages paid, kidnapping as well as severe and cruel punishments for misbehaviour and absconding all common practices. Some incidents, such as the Bendu Atrocity of 1897, attracted international condemnation. The first strike by Indigenous people in Australia took place in 1946 in the Pilbara, when Aboriginal pastoral workers walked off the stations in protest at low pay and bad working conditions, a strike that lasted for over three years.
Family clans in the Pilbara who were supported by mining prospector, Don McLeod, developed skills for mining and the concentration of rare metals. For a short period money accumulated, which according to Aboriginal law was to be used for traditional ways. Eventually the funds were used to establish an independent Aboriginal-controlled school. The concept has expanded into a movement with around 20 similar schools established in northern Western Australia by the mid 1990s.
Many Pilbara communities face the many complex effects of colonisation, and lack adequate access to housing, health and education. A 1971 survey of 1,000 Aboriginal people conducted by Pat McPherson found that most had one or more serious diseases. At the McClelland Royal Commission into British nuclear testing, Aboriginals from the Pilbara provided evidence regarding the explosion on the Montebello Islands.
Aboriginal communities are sited over a number of different places. Many have poor infrastructure.
Relations between police and aboriginals are very often tense.

Location and description

Under the Regional Development Commissions Act Pilbara is situated south of the Kimberley, and is made up of the local government areas of Shire of Ashburton, Shire of East Pilbara, City of Karratha and Town of Port Hedland.
The Pilbara region covers an area of 507,896 km2 , roughly the combined land area of the US States of California and Indiana. It has a population of more than 45,000, most of whom live in the western third of the region, in towns such as Port Hedland, Karratha, Wickham, Newman and Marble Bar. A substantial number of people also work in the region on a fly-in/fly-out basis.
There are approximately 10 major/medium population centres and more than 25 smaller ones
The Pilbara consists of three distinct geographic areas. The western third is the Roebourne coastal sandplain, which supports most of the region's population in towns and much of its industry and commerce. The eastern third is almost entirely desert, and is sparsely populated by a small number of Aboriginal peoples. These are separated by the inland uplands of the Pilbara Craton, including the predominant Hamersley Range which has a considerable number of mining towns, the Chichester Range and others. These uplands have a number of gorges and other natural attractions.
The Pilbara contains some of the world's oldest surface rocks, including the ancient fossilised remains known as stromatolites and rocks such as granites that are more than three billion years old. In 2007, some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth was found in 3.4 billion-year-old sandstones at Strelley Pool, which preserve fossils of sulfur-processing bacteria. The mineralized spheres, which were found on an ancient beach and have a cell-like morphology, were chemically analysed, revealing that they used sulfur for fuel.

Climate

The climate of the Pilbara is arid and tropical. It experiences high temperatures and low irregular rainfall that follows the summer cyclones. During the summer months, maximum temperatures exceed almost every day, and temperatures in excess of are not uncommon. Winter temperatures rarely drop below on the coast; however, inland temperatures as low as are occasionally recorded.
The Pilbara town of Marble Bar set a world record of most consecutive days of maximum temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more, during a period of 160 such days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924.
The average annual rainfall in the region is between. Almost all of the Pilbara's rainfall occurs between December and May, usually with occasional heavy downpours in thunderstorms or tropical cyclones. The period from June to November is usually completely rainless, with warm to very hot and sunny conditions. Like most of the north coast of Australia, the coastal areas of the Pilbara experience occasional tropical cyclones. The frequency of cyclones crossing the Pilbara coast is about 7 every 10 years. Due to the low population density in the Pilbara region, cyclones rarely cause large scale destruction or loss of life.



Economy

The Pilbara's economy is dominated by mining exports and petroleum export industries.

Iron ore

Most of Australia's iron ore is mined in the Pilbara, with mines mostly centred around Tom Price and Newman. The iron ore industry employs 9,000 people from the Pilbara area. The Pilbara also has one of the world's major manganese mines, Woodie Woodie, situated southeast of Port Hedland.
Iron ore deposits were first discovered by prospector Stan Hilditch, who in 1957 found a large iron ore deposit in the southern Ophthalmia Range, at what was to become the Mount Whaleback mine.
In the 1960s, it was reportedly called "one of the most massive ore bodies in the world" by Thomas Price, then vice president of US-based steel company Kaiser Steel. Geoscience Australia calculated that the country's "economic demonstrated resources" of iron amounted to 24 gigatonnes, or 24 billion tonnes. According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics,, that resource is being used up at a rate of 324 million tonnes a year, with rates expected to increase over coming years. Experts Gavin Mudd and Jonathon Law expect it to be gone within 30 to 50 years and 56 years.
, active iron ore mines in the Pilbara are:

aerial
A significant part of Pilbara's economy is based on liquified natural gas through the North West Shelf Venture and Pluto LNG plant, both operated by Woodside.

Agriculture

The region also has a number of cattle-grazing stations, and a substantial tourist sector, with popular natural attractions including the Karijini and Millstream-Chichester national parks and the Dampier Archipelago.

Transport

The first railway in the Pilbara region was the narrow-gauge Marble Bar Railway between Port Hedland and Marble Bar. The Marble Bar Railway opened in July 1911 and closed in October 1951. The Roebourne-Cossack Tramway opened in 1897 and many industrial railways have been built to serve the mines.
Currently four heavy-duty railways are associated with the various iron-ore mines, with a fifth line proposed to serve the Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. mines. The railways are all standard gauge and are built to the heaviest North American standards. Between 2008 and 2012, Rio Tinto proposes to convert to driverless trains on its railways. An additional 300 km line is planned from the Roy Hill mine to a port at Boodarie, near Port Hedland.

Ports

The ports of the Pilbara are:
The dominant flora of the Pilbara is acacia trees and shrubs and drought-resistant Triodia spinifex grasses. Several species of acacia trees are endemic to the Pilbara and are the focus of conservation programs, along with wildflowers and other local specialities.
The Pilbara is home to a wide variety of endemic species adapted to this tough environment. There is a high diversity of invertebrates, including hundreds of species of subterranean fauna, which are microscopic invertebrates that live in caves, vugs or groundwater aquifers of the region, and terrestrial fauna. The Pilbara olive python, the western pebble-mound mouse, and the Pilbara ningaui of the Hamersley Range are among the many species of animals within the fragile ecosystems of this desert ecoregion. Birds include the Australian hobby, nankeen kestrel, spotted harrier, mulga parrot and budgerigars.
Wildlife has been damaged by the extraction of iron, natural gas and asbestos, but the protection of culturally and environmentally sensitive areas of the Pilbara is now enhanced by the delineation of several protected areas, including the Millstream-Chichester and the Karijini National Parks.