Worldwide application of synthem stratigraphy in the 21st century: a bibliographical survey

Synthems are unconformity-bounded stratigraphical units. A total of 71 research articles on synthems were published after 2000. The number of these articles published annually tended to increase in the beginning of the 21st century and peaked in 2013. The majority of their authors are from Italy, although specialists from 22 other countries, including those African, Asian, South American, and Caribbean, also published articles on synthems. The synthem research was aimed chiefly at Cenozoic deposits. The relative success of the synthem stratigraphy in Italy can be explained by the peculiarity of the geological setting of its territory and the well-developed national geological research network. Evidently, the synthem stratigraphy has not declined since the beginning of the 21st century, and this fact should be considered properly by the national and international stratigraphical commissions.