Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie-Boulder, known colloquially as just Kalgoorlie, is a city in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located 595 km east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. The city was founded in 1889 by the amalgamation of the towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder, which developed in 1893 during the Coolgardie gold rush, on Western Australia's "Golden Mile", it is the ultimate destination of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme and the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail. At June 2015, Kalgoorlie-Boulder had an estimated urban population of 32,797; the name Kalgoorlie is derived from the Wangai word Karlkurla or Kulgooluh, meaning "place of the silky pears". In the winter of 1893, prospectors Patrick Hannan, Tom Flanagan, Dan Shea were travelling to Mount Youle when one of their horses cast a shoe. During the halt in their journey, the men noticed signs of gold in the area around the foot of what is now the Mount Charlotte gold mine, located on a small hill north of the current city, decided to stay and investigate.
On 17 June 1893, Hannan filed a Reward Claim, leading to hundreds of men swarming to the area in search of gold, Kalgoorlie called Hannan's Find, was born. The population of the town was 2,018 in 1898; the mining of gold, along with other metals such as nickel, has been a major industry in Kalgoorlie since, today employs about one-quarter of Kalgoorlie's workforce and generates a significant proportion of its income. The concentrated area of large gold mines surrounding the original Hannan's find is referred to as the Golden Mile, was sometimes referred to as the world's richest square mile of earth. In 1901, the population of Kalgoorlie was 4,793 which increased to 6,790 by 1903; the 3 ft 6 in narrow-gauge Government Eastern Goldfields Railway line reached Kalgoorlie station in 1896, the main named railway service from Perth was the overnight sleeper train The Westland, which ran until the 1970s. In 1917, a 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in standard gauge railway line was completed, connecting Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta, South Australia, across 2,000 kilometres of desert, the rest of the eastern states.
The standardisation of the railway connecting Perth in 1968 completed the Sydney–Perth railway, making rail travel from Perth to Sydney possible. During the 1890s, the Goldfields area boomed as a whole, with an area population exceeding 200,000, composed of prospectors; the area gained a notorious reputation for being a "wild west" with prostitutes. This rapid increase in population and claims of neglect by the state government in Perth led to the proposition of the new state of Auralia, but with the sudden diaspora after the Gold Rush, these plans fell through. Places, famous or infamous, for which Kalgoorlie is noted include its water pipeline, designed by C. Y. O'Connor and bringing in fresh water from Mundaring Weir near Perth, its Hay Street brothels, its two-up school, the goldfields railway loopline, the Kalgoorlie Town Hall, the Paddy Hannan statue/drinking fountain, the Super Pit, Mount Charlotte lookout, its main street is Hannan Street, named after the town's founder. One of the infamous brothels serves as a museum and is a major national attraction.
Kalgoorlie and the surrounding district were served by an extensive collection of suburban railways and tramways, providing for both passenger and freight traffic. In 1989, the Town of Kalgoorlie and Shire of Boulder formally amalgamated to create the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, adjoining the two towns into what is now the Fifth most populous city in Western Australia. On 20 April 2010, Kalgoorlie was shaken by a an earthquake; the epicentre was 30 km north east of the town. The quake caused damage to a number of commercial hotels and historic buildings along Burt Street in Boulder; the entire Burt St. precinct was evacuated until 23 April. Work in the Superpit and many other mines around Kalgoorlie was stopped. Two people suffered minor injuries as a result of the quake. On 29 August 2016, Kalgoorlie was the scene of a collision between a 56-year-old non-Indigenous man and 14-year-old Indigenous teenager Elijah Doughty; the 56-year old chased him in his utility. The utility struck Doughty. There was no evidence.
The following day, a protest over Elijah's killing was held. Several police officers were injured during the riot and at least 10 people were charged. In July 2017, the 56-year old Kalgoorlie man who admitted causing the death of the Indigenous teenager was found not guilty of manslaughter, but sentenced in a Perth Court to three years in jail after being convicted of causing death by dangerous driving. Kalgoorlie–Boulder is a regional centre and has a Chamber of Commerce and a Chamber of Minerals and Energy. Since 1992, Kalgoorlie has been home to the Dealers conference, held annually in August, it is Australia's premier international mining conference. It is home to the Australian Prospectors & Miners' Hall of Fame; the Super Pit is an open-cut gold mine about 3.6 km long, 1.6 km wide, 512 m deep. It was created by Alan Bond, who bought up a number of old mining leases to get the land area needed for the Super Pit; the excavating has revealed an old shaft containing abandoned equipment and vehicles from the earlier mines.
A visitor centre overlooks the mine which operates 7 days a week. The mine blasts at 1:00 pm every day, unless winds would carry du
Semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate or steppe climate is the climate of a region that receives precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-arid climates, depending on variables such as temperature, they give rise to different biomes. A more precise definition is given by the Köppen climate classification, which treats steppe climates as intermediates between desert climates and humid climates in ecological characteristics and agricultural potential. Semi-arid climates tend to support short or scrubby vegetation and are dominated by either grasses or shrubs. To determine if a location has a semi-arid climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. Finding the precipitation threshold involves first multiplying the average annual temperature in °C by 20 adding 280 if 70% or more of the total precipitation is in the high-sun half of the year, or 140 if 30%–70% of the total precipitation is received during the applicable period, or 0 if less than 30% of the total precipitation is so received.
If the area's annual precipitation is less than the threshold but more than half the threshold, it is classified as a BS. Furthermore, to delineate "hot semi-arid climates" from "cold semi-arid climates", there are three used isotherms: Either a mean annual temperature of 18°C, or a mean temperature of 0°C or −3°C in the coldest month, so that a location with a "BS" type climate with the appropriate temperature above whichever isotherm is being used is classified as "hot semi-arid", a location with the appropriate temperature below the given isotherm is classified as "cold semi-arid". Hot semi-arid climates tend to be located in the 20s and 30s latitudes of the in proximity to regions with a tropical savanna or a humid subtropical climate; these climates tend to have hot, sometimes hot and warm to cool winters, with some to minimal precipitation. Hot semi-arid climates are most found around the fringes of subtropical deserts. Hot semi-arid climates are most found in Africa and South Asia. In Australia, a large portion of the Outback surrounding the central desert regions lies within the hot semi-arid climate region.
In South Asia, both India and sections of Pakistan experiences the seasonal effects of monsoons and feature short but well-defined wet seasons, but is not sufficiently wet overall to qualify as a tropical savanna climate. Hot semi-arid climates can be found in Europe, parts of North America, such as in Mexico, areas of the Southwestern United States, sections of South America such as the sertão, the Gran Chaco, on the poleward side of the arid deserts, where they feature a Mediterranean precipitation pattern, with rainless summers and wetter winters. Cold semi-arid climates tend to be located in elevated portions of temperate zones bordering a humid continental climate or a Mediterranean climate, they are found in continental interiors some distance from large bodies of water. Cold semi-arid climates feature warm to hot dry summers, though their summers are not quite as hot as those of hot semi-arid climates. Unlike hot semi-arid climates, areas with cold semi-arid climates tend to have cold winters.
These areas see some snowfall during the winter, though snowfall is much lower than at locations at similar latitudes with more humid climates. Areas featuring cold semi-arid climates tend to have higher elevations than areas with hot semi-arid climates, tend to feature major temperature swings between day and night, sometimes by as much as 20 °C or more in that time frame; these large diurnal temperature variations are seen in hot semi-arid climates. Cold semi-arid climates at higher latitudes tend to have dry winters and wetter summers, while cold semi-arid climates at lower latitudes tend to have precipitation patterns more akin to subtropical climates, with dry summers wet winters, wetter springs and autumns. Cold semi-arid climates are most found in Asia and North America. However, they can be found in Northern Africa, South Africa, sections of South America and sections of interior southern Australia and New Zealand. In climate classification, three isotherms means that delineate between hot and cold semi-arid climates — the 18°C average annual temperature or that of the coldest month, the warm side of the isotherm of choice defining a BSh climate from the BSk on the cooler side.
As a result of this, some areas can have climates that are classified as hot or cold semi-arid depending on the isotherm used. One such location is San Diego, which has cool summers for the latitude due to prevailing winds off the ocean but mild winters. Continental climate Dust Bowl Goyder's Line Köppen climate classification Palliser's Triangle Ustic Wave height
Boulder, Western Australia
Boulder is a suburb in the Western Australian Goldfields 595 kilometres east of Perth and bordering onto the town of Kalgoorlie in the Eastern Goldfields region. The Boulder Races, were a significant event in early twentieth century goldfields region history; the town sustained its separateness until the 1980s, however prior to that era, many surveys and studies of the towns and their areas tended to join the names. Prior to 1989 Boulder was a town, but it was merged with Kalgoorlie to form the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder; the population of Boulder in 1901 was 2,936 which increased to 5,658 in 1903. At the 2006 census, Boulder had a population of 5,178; this had decreased to 4,825 by the 2016 census. On 20 April 2010 Kalgoorlie-Boulder suffered a magnitude 5.0 earthquake which damaged several of the historic buildings in Boulder. During World War 2, Boulder was the location of RAAF No.27 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot, completed in 1942 and closed on 14 June 1944. Consisting of 4 tanks, 31 fuel depots were built across Australia for the storage and supply of aircraft fuel for the RAAF and the US Army Air Forces at a total cost of £900,000.
Andrew Oswald Wilson, designer of the Boulder Town Hall
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres, the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia's Sakha Republic; the state has about 2.6 million inhabitants – around 11 percent of the national total – of whom the vast majority live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated. The first European visitor to Western Australia was the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog, who visited the Western Australian coast in 1616; the first European settlement of Western Australia occurred following the landing by Major Edmund Lockyer on 26 December 1826 of an expedition on behalf of the New South Wales colonial government.
He established a convict-supported military garrison at King George III Sound, at present-day Albany, on 21 January 1827 formally took possession of the western third of the continent for the British Crown. This was followed by the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, including the site of the present-day capital, Perth. York was the first inland settlement in Western Australia. Situated 97 kilometres east of Perth, it was settled on 16 September 1831. Western Australia achieved responsible government in 1890 and federated with the other British colonies in Australia in 1901. Today, its economy relies on mining, agriculture and tourism; the state produces 46 per cent of Australia's exports. Western Australia is the second-largest iron ore producer in the world. Western Australia is bounded to the east by longitude 129°E, the meridian 129 degrees east of Greenwich, which defines the border with South Australia and the Northern Territory, bounded by the Indian Ocean to the west and north.
The International Hydrographic Organization designates the body of water south of the continent as part of the Indian Ocean. The total length of the state's eastern border is 1,862 km. There are 20,781 km including 7,892 km of island coastline; the total land area occupied by the state is 2.5 million km2. The bulk of Western Australia consists of the old Yilgarn craton and Pilbara craton which merged with the Deccan Plateau of India and the Karoo and Zimbabwe cratons of Southern Africa, in the Archean Eon to form Ur, one of the oldest supercontinents on Earth. In May 2017, evidence of the earliest known life on land may have been found in 3.48-billion-year-old geyserite and other related mineral deposits uncovered in the Pilbara craton. Because the only mountain-building since has been of the Stirling Range with the rifting from Antarctica, the land is eroded and ancient, with no part of the state above 1,245 metres AHD. Most of the state is a low plateau with an average elevation of about 400 metres low relief, no surface runoff.
This descends sharply to the coastal plains, in some cases forming a sharp escarpment. The extreme age of the landscape has meant that the soils are remarkably infertile and laterised. Soils derived from granitic bedrock contain an order of magnitude less available phosphorus and only half as much nitrogen as soils in comparable climates in other continents. Soils derived from extensive sandplains or ironstone are less fertile, nearly devoid of soluble phosphate and deficient in zinc, copper and sometimes potassium and calcium; the infertility of most of the soils has required heavy application by farmers of fertilizers. These have resulted in damage to bacterial populations; the grazing and use of hoofed mammals and heavy machinery through the years have resulted in compaction of soils and great damage to the fragile soils. Large-scale land clearing for agriculture has damaged habitats for native fauna; as a result, the South West region of the state has a higher concentration of rare, threatened or endangered flora and fauna than many areas of Australia, making it one of the world's biodiversity "hot spots".
Large areas of the state's wheatbelt region have problems with dryland salinity and the loss of fresh water. The southwest coastal area has a Mediterranean climate, it was heavily forested, including large stands of karri, one of the tallest trees in the world. This agricultural region is one of the nine most bio-diverse terrestrial habitats, with a higher proportion of endemic species than most other equivalent regions. Thanks to the offshore Leeuwin Current, the area is one of the top six regions for marine biodiversity and contains the most southerly coral reefs in the world. Average annual rainfall varies from 300 millimetres at the edge of the Wheatbelt region to 1,400 millimetres in the wettest areas near Northcliffe, but from November to March, evaporation exceeds rainfall, it is very dry. Plants are adapted to this as well as the extreme poverty of all soils; the central two-thirds of the state is sparsely inhabited. The only significant economic activity is mining. Annual rainfall averages less than 300 millimetres, most of which occurs in sporadic torrential falls related to cyclone events in summer.
An exception to this is
Division of O'Connor
The Division of O'Connor is an Australian electoral division in the state of Western Australia. It is one of Western Australia's three rural seats, one of the largest electoral constituencies in the world; the division was named after Charles Yelverton O'Connor, the Engineer-in-Chief of Western Australia who designed Fremantle Harbour and the Goldfields Pipeline. The division was proclaimed at the redistribution of 28 February 1980, was first contested at the 1980 federal election, it has always been a rural seat, was based in the Mid West and Great Southern regions of Western Australia with major population centres in Geraldton and Albany. The division was altered by a redistribution in 2008, taking effect at the 2010 election; the other large country seat in Western Australia, needed to expand in size, but it proved all but impossible to reconfigure Kalgoorlie in a way that would have left O'Connor with any rational basis. It was decided to abolish Kalgoorlie and push O'Connor well to the east to take in most of Kalgoorlie's former southern portion.
The northern portion of the old O'Connor was shifted to the new seat of Durack. It is now centred on the Great Southern and Goldfields-Esperance regions of the state, with major population centres in Albany and Esperance. Local government areas within the electorate as at the 2016 election include Albany, Boyup Brook, Bridgetown-Greenbushes, Broomehill-Tambellup, Bruce Rock, Coolgardie, Cranbrook, Denmark, Dundas, Gnowangerup, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Kent, Kondinin, Lake Grace, Leonora, Menzies, Narrogin, Pingelly, Ravensthorpe, Wandering, West Arthur, Wickepin and Woodanilling; the seat has always been held by a conservative party. When it was created, its demographics suggested that it should have been held by the National Country Party, despite its large notional Liberal majority. However, severe conflict between rival branches of the state National Party allowed Liberal Wilson Tuckey to take the seat on Labor preferences. Tuckey held it without serious difficulty until his defeat at the 2010 election by Nationals WA candidate Tony Crook with a large swing.
However, the Liberals regained the seat at the 2013 election. Division of O'Connor - Australian Electoral Commission
Coolgardie, Western Australia
Coolgardie is a small town in Western Australia, 558 kilometres east of the state capital, Perth. It has a population of 850 people. Although Coolgardie is now known to most Western Australians as a tourist town and a mining ghost town, it was once the third largest town in Western Australia. At this time, mining of alluvial gold was a major industry and supplied the flagging economy with new hope. Many miners suffered under the harsh conditions, but for a few, their finds made the hard work worthwhile. Most men, left poorer than they had started off, with their hopes dashed; the town was founded in 1892. Australia had seen several major gold rushes over the previous three decades centred on the east coast, but these had been exhausted by the 1890s. With the discovery of a new goldfield, an entire new gold rush began, with thousands flocking to the area. By 1898, Coolgardie was the third largest town in the colony, with an estimated population of 5,008. At its peak, 700 mining companies based in Coolgardie were registered with the London Stock Exchange.
The town supported a wide variety of businesses and services, including the railway connection between Perth and Kalgoorlie, a swimming pool, many hotels and several newspapers. The value of Coolgardie to the colony in the late 1890s was so significant that it was used as leverage to force Western Australia to join the Australian federation - Britain and the eastern colonies threatened to create a new state to be named Auralia around Coolgardie and other regional goldfields, such as Kalgoorlie, if the government in Perth did not agree to hold a referendum on federation; the Western Australian government reluctantly complied and a referendum was held just in time to become a founding state in the new federation. When federation did occur in 1901, Coolgardie was the centre of a federal electorate, the Division of Coolgardie. Soon after in November 1901, Alf Morgans from the state electorate of Coolgardie became Premier of Western Australia. Albert Thomas of Coolgardie, was elected the first Member of Dundas, an electoral division south of Coolgardie.
However, the gold began to decrease in the early 1900s, by World War I, the town was in serious decline. The federal electorate was abolished in 1913 due to the diminished population, as many of its residents left for other towns where the gold was still plentiful, it soon ceased to be a municipality; the situation remained unchanged throughout the century, as its population slipped to around 200 and it became a virtual ghost town. An example of this decline is that, in March 1896, Coolgardie's main street was lit by an electric light, but by April 1924, the same street was lit by four hurricane lamps. Despite this, many of the buildings from the town's peak were retained, which in recent years has helped start a small revival in the town's fortunes; the development of a tourist industry has once again created some employment in the town, resulting in a small increase in population. Coolgardie appears to be no longer in danger of dying; when the Coolgardie gold rush occurred in 1894, the Afghan cameleers were quick to move in.
The goldfields could not have continued without the water they transported. In March that year, a caravan of six Afghans, forty-seven camels and eleven calves, set out across the desert from Marree to the goldfield, it arrived in July with the camels, carrying between 270 kilograms each, in good condition. Another fifty-eight camels for Coolgardie arrived by ship in Albany in September. By 1898 there were 300 members of the Muslim community in Coolgardie and 80 on average attended Friday prayer. Coolgardie held the main Muslim community in the colony at that time. There was not one Muslim woman amongst them, no marriages were performed and no burials, reflecting a young and transient population. Similar to the other structures, simple mud and tin-roofed mosques were constructed in the town. All of the Afghan Muslim population relocated from Coolgardie to Perth, the new capital of Western Australia. Racism was common towards the Afghan cameleers, there were reports of unsolved murders and torture of Afghan owned animals.
Great Eastern Highway runs through the town as Bayley Street. Just to the town's east, Highway 94 turns south onto Coolgardie-Esperance Highway, which heads towards Norseman, the starting point of the route east across the Nullarbor Plain; the narrow gauge railway to Kalgoorlie, the Eastern Goldfields Railway passed through Coolgardie, until 1968, when the new standard gauge line was built to the north on a new route. The Transwa Prospector train stops 14 km north of the town at Bonnie Vale. There is a limited public bus service to the town on the Kalgoorlie to Perth route, although school bus services are more frequent. In the 1890s there were four mining fields gazetted with Coolgardie as reference point: Coolgardie Gold Field East Coolgardie Gold Field. In 1902, this was the richest gold field in Western Australia. North Coolgardie Gold Field North East Coolgardie Gold Field Despite the changes to the Kalgoorlie region, Coolgardie still has a Mining Registrar. Varischetti mine rescue at nearby Bonnie Vale in 1907 Burbanks Gold Mine Coolgardie Gold Mine Coolgardie safe.
Shire of Coolgardie
Leonora, Western Australia
Leonora is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located 833 kilometres northeast of the state capital, 237 kilometres north of the city of Kalgoorlie. The first European explorer was John Forrest, who visited the area in 1869. On 21 June 1869 Forrest's party made camp near a conspicuous hill, which Forrest named Mount Leonora, after his six-year-old niece Frances Leonora Hardey. In 1895, gold was discovered in the area by prospector Edward'Doodah' Sullivan at the Johannesburg lease just north of the current townsite. In the following two years a number of rich finds resulted in rapid development of the area; the Sons of Gwalia gold mine brought Leonora to the attention of the world. By 1897 a residential and business area had been established, the town was gazetted as Leonora. Leonora had a single track passenger tramway linking the town and nearby Gwalia, from 1901 to 1921. Steam driven, the service was electric from November 1908, petrol powered from 1915. A reverse osmosis desalination treatment plant was opened in October 2005 to improve the quality of the town's water supply from the Station Creek wellfield by reducing the occurring high levels of salinity and hardness.
It was designed to supply 2.5 million litres of treated water per day. In 2010, the Rudd Government relocated asylum seekers from Christmas Island to the'Leonora Alternative Place of Detention', an immigration detention centre used as a mine workers hostel, in Leonora; the Abbott Government closed the facility in February 2014. Leonora is a mining town. There are a number of major gold mines in the Shire, as well as the Murrin Murin laterite nickel project; the area supports a significant pastoral industry. At the 2016 census, Leonora had a population of 27.6 % of which were of Aboriginal descent. The area has an arid climate, with hot summers and cool winters. Frost may occur in some winter mornings. Rainfall is sparse. Leonora Airport Media related to Leonora, Western Australia at Wikimedia Commons Leonora tramway history
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Media related to Norseman, Western Australia at Wikimedia Commons