Fossilised stromatolites found nearby (one of the earliest forms of life on Earth) have been dated to the Paleoarchean era approximately 3.5 billion years ago.

[citation needed] The town's Ironclad Hotel was built in the 1890s, and has been listed on the Western Australian register of heritage places since 2006.

[citation needed] A Telegraph line was proposed during discussion of the Estimates in January 1893 to link Condon to Marble Bar.

[citation needed] After approval, many basic administrative errors delayed or interrupted construction of the line to an area in which very significant gold finds were being mined.

[citation needed] Marble Bar has a hot desert climate (Köppen BWh) with sweltering summers and warm winters.

[16] Fossilised stromatolites, found near Marble Bar, are one of the earliest forms of life on Earth, dating to 3.5 billion years ago during the Paleoarchean era, when at that time oxygen produced aerobic organisms.

The biologic explanation has been disputed with the argument 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.

[27][28] Research by Abigail Allwood on the geology of the North Pole stromatolite reef appears to confirm the biologic origins of patterns in the formation.

Continuing support for their geologic origin, following the 2006 publication of her team's results in Nature[29] led to further investigations and Allwood's development of the PIXL technology at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for use in confirming her earlier conclusions.