South Wales is an area with many features of outstanding interest to geologists, who have for long used the area for University field trips. This varied and accessible region has provided a written record of geological interest that dates to the 12th century, when Giraldus Cambrensis noted pyritous shales near Newport. Some of the first published representations of fossils were of fossil plants from coal measures near Neath (Gibson late 17th century). The British geologists Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison did fundamentally important work in South Wales on Old Red Sandstone and the underlying rocks. The first volume of memoirs (1846) published by the Geological Survey contained a conspectus of the geology of South Wales that set a template for all future work.