The combination of local fuel and good transport links from the harbour made Margam an important part of the industrial landscape of the South Wales Coalfield.
Iron ore was also extracted from the coal measures, principally from the north crop area (including Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenavon).
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The availability of coal and nearby limestone (as a flux) gave rise to a substantial local iron and steel industry which was perpetuated in the 20th century by the location of modern steelworks at Ebbw Vale, Newport and Cardiff and Port Talbot.
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Tramway-fed canals such as the Swansea Canal and Glamorganshire Canal were supplemented, and then superseded, by the development of numerous competing railway branches which fed docks principally at Swansea, Cardiff, Newport, Llanelli and Barry.
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Following the general collapse of the UK coal industry, most pits closed during the 1980s and the last deep mine, at Tower Colliery on the north crop, ceased mining in January 2008.
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In those coalfields to the south of the former Wales-Brabant High i.e. the South Wales, Bristol, Somerset, Forest of Dean and concealed Oxfordshire and Kent coalfields, the corresponding group is the South Wales Coal Measures Group.
All the strata are tilted in a generally southerly direction towards the axis of the South Wales Coalfield syncline though there is significant local variation, due in part to the proximity of the eastern slopes of the hill to the Neath Disturbance.
His first job was in teaching in Suffolk, but he was soon appointed as an Assistant Lecturer in Geology at University of Wales, where he expanded his research to cover the South Wales coalfield.