Newquay is a town in the south west of England. It is a seaside resort approximately 12 miles north of Truro and 20 miles west of Bodmin.

The town is bounded to the south by the River Gannel and its associated salt marsh, and to the north-east by the Porth Valley. The western edge of the town meets the Atlantic at Fistral Bay.

The bedrock underlying Newquay is the Devonian age Meadfoot Group, a succession of interbedded mudstones, siltstones and sandstones, with occasional beds of limestone. Quaternary age deposits of blown sand cover the bedrock in the western part of the town. Some mineralisation associated with the Cornubian granite batholith that intrudes into much of the peninsular is found in the western part of the town near Fistral Beach, in the form of lodes of lead and silver minerals.