Pilbara
- 21119.5Koordinaten: 21 ° 0 ' S, 119 ° 30' E
Pilbara is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is situated south of the Kimberley region and consists of the districts of Ashburton Shire, East Pilbara Shire, Port Hedland and Roebourne Shire Town.
Overview
Has the Pilbara region, including the islands off the coast of an area of 507 896 km2 and more than 45,000 inhabitants, of which lives most of the western third of the region. Most inhabitants live directly in the larger cities of Port Hedland, Karratha, Marble Bar, Newman and Tom Price region. Some commuters also work there; However, they mostly commute by plane, not by car.
Geography
The region is geographically divided into three units. In the western third prevail sandy coastal landscapes; in this part do the majority of the population and there are also the major commercial and business centers to be found. In the eastern third, there is practically nothing but desert and except for some Aboriginal settlements, it is settled very thin. In between there is a region of highly productive natural resource inventories, in which a significant proportion of Australia's heavy industry is located. In this part, there are additionally some natural attractions such as spectacular river gorges ( Gorge, a canyon comparable ) or Mount Bruce ( 1235 m) and Mount Meharry ( 1251 m), the highest mountains of Western Australia.
Geology
In the Pilbara region, there are fossils of the group of the oldest life forms that have been found stromatolites at the age of nearly 3.5 billion years ago. The most ancient material was found in the 3,490 -million-year -old Dresser Formation, part of the Warrawoona Group, and is stratigraphically lower than the Strelley Pool Chert. The Dresser Formation is discoverable in the North Pole Dome of the East Pilbara granite - greenstone terrain.
The approximately 3,420 million years old Strelley Pool Chert is a gray and white unity in Warrawoona Group, Pilbara Supergroup, which is part of the East Pilbara granite - greenstone terrain in the Pilbara craton.
Climate
The climate of the Pilbara is arid to semiarid and is determined by high temperatures with little rain and low humidity. In the summer reaches almost every day temperatures of over 32 ° C, but also extremely hot days at 45 ° C and more are common. In the town of Marble Bar, which is considered one of the hottest places in the world, has a minimum temperature of 37 ° C recorded at 160 consecutive days between 31 October 1923 and 7 April 1924. The highest recorded temperature was equal in Marble Bar recorded at 49.2 ° C twice: on 11 January 1905 and 3 January 1922.
Flash floods and floods threaten the region in times of heavy rain, occasionally occurs from November to May. Moreover reaches the coast of the Pilbara, as most of the northern coast of Australia often under the influence of tropical cyclones, but the cause of the relatively low population density rarely large-scale destruction or loss of life.
Economy
The industry of the region is dominated by the mining and the oil industry. The Pilbara has the world's largest deposits of iron ore, which are mainly mined in the area around the mining towns of Tom Price and Newman and shipped via Port Hedland. These deposits were discovered by Lang Hancock, who thus became one of the most important industrialists of Australia. The mining company Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton have in the region of some of the largest iron ore mines in the world.
In addition to industry, the economy of the Pilbara has a strong tourism sector, especially in the area of National Park Karijini and Millstream -Chichester and the Dampier Archipelago Murujuga, a peninsula which houses the world's largest number of prehistoric petroglyphs, and the Ningaloo Reef.
Origin of the name
The name of the region comes from the Aboriginal word for the mullet fish.
History
Between 20 and 22 March 1912, the Coast Pilbaras was hit by a cyclone that devastated a long stretch of coastline, numerous ships sunk, and at least 150 human lives. The best-known sunk by the cyclone vessel was the passenger steamer Koombana the Adelaide Steamship Company, which sank north of Port Hedland with all 138 people on board and has to this day never found.