Southwest Wales is an important area of geological interest, with many sites designated as SSSI due to their significance. These locations provide access to a range of fossil-bearing strata, particularly along coastal foreshores.
Fossils such as graptolites can be collected at sites like Abereiddy, while other locations yield corals, brachiopods, and trilobites from older deposits. The coastal exposures regularly reveal fossil material through natural erosion.
Sites including Marloes Sands and West Angle Bay offer accessible collecting opportunities, with a mixture of rock types and fossil content across the region, making it a productive area for fossil hunting.
Abereiddy Bay is a classic place to see Ordovician graptolites in dark shale. The southern foreshore is especially known for the paired branches of the tuning-fork graptolite, while folded sediments and volcanic rocks around the bay tell a much more varied geological story. Ordovician, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Nolton Haven’s Carboniferous sandstones and shales preserve plant remains from ancient river and coal-swamp landscapes. The main bay and the coast towards Rickets Head offer different views of this history, including large rooting structures best enjoyed and photographed where they lie. Carboniferous, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦
Little Haven’s steeply folded Carboniferous sandstones and shales reveal a former coal-bearing landscape. The coves beside the village offer striking geological features and occasional plant fossils, from frond impressions to ribbed stems preserved in loose shale. Carboniferous, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦
Fishguard combines rugged volcanic scenery with reports of graptolites and trace fossils in occasional shale. This guide focuses on Pwll Landdu, the small cove east of Fishguard Fort; the fossil photographs illustrate the reported material, although their exact collecting bed has not been established. Ordovician, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦
Druidston Haven combines graptolite-bearing Ordovician shale, younger Carboniferous rocks and a remarkable record of Ice Age deposition. The broad beach offers opportunities to observe loose fossil-bearing material and see how faulting and glaciation have brought very different chapters of geological history together. Ordovician and Carboniferous, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Freshwater East combines a broad sandy beach with Silurian marine fossils and an internationally important record of early land plants and animal traces. The rocks around the bay record a transition from marine environments to coastal wetlands, rivers and ancient soils. Carboniferous, Devonian, Silurian, Ordovician, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦
Manorbier Bay combines fossiliferous limestone pebbles with spectacular, steeply tilted Old Red Sandstone cliffs. Crinoid fragments are reported in grey stones around the stream, while the surrounding red beds preserve ancient soils and animal trails. These tell different geological stories: fossils in transported pebbles do not date the cliffs behind the beach. Devonian, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Corals in Carboniferous limestone are the main attraction at Lydstep, where weathered boulders and sea-washed stones reveal the remains of an ancient tropical sea. The small cove below the headland is especially rewarding for observing fossils, while steeply tilted beds and younger limestone breccias add to the geological interest. Carboniferous, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Presipe’s steep red-and-grey cliffs reveal ancient river deposits, fossil soils and traces of animal activity. Burrows and tracks occur on some bedding surfaces, while cracks, ripples and calcrete structures help explain the landscape in which the rocks formed. Devonian, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Above Porthgain’s harbour, loose slate waste records the village’s quarrying past. Fossils are uncommon, but occasional graptolites reward a careful look at natural surfaces, while the cliffs and surviving stone hoppers reveal a much wider geological and industrial story. Ordovician, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦
The northern rocks at Whitesands Bay expose steeply inclined Cambrian beds beside a broad sandy beach. Fossils are sparse, but careful observation of loose rock surfaces may reveal dark impressions of small brachiopod shells, giving a glimpse of the ancient sea in which these sediments formed. Cambrian, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦
West Angle Bay exposes folded Lower Carboniferous limestone and shale, with crinoid stems, brachiopods and other marine fossils visible on weathered rock surfaces. The sandy beach is a good starting point for a family visit, while the surrounding cliffs reveal the change from Devonian river deposits to a shallow sea. Carboniferous, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Marloes Sands combines Silurian fossils with spectacular folded cliffs and the volcanic rocks of an ancient coastline. Corals and brachiopods are the main attraction, with trilobites, crinoids and other marine remains recorded in the fossiliferous beds. The wide sandy bay is also an excellent place to see how shallow seas gave way to river floodplains. Silurian, Cliffs and Foreshore, Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
