The Shallow Benthic Zones: SBZ or SB?

The larger foraminiferal biozonation system currently adopted for shallow-water settings for the Cenozoic Neo-Tethys, namely the Shallow Benthic Zonation as defined by Cahuzac & Poignant (1997) and Serra-Kiel et al. (1998), retains a fundamental ambiguity in the acronym used to abbreviate the biozones. The prevalent use is to identify the zones as SBZ (Shallow Benthic Zones), followed by a number. We highlight here the inconsistencies of this use which, unique in all biozonation systems using acronyms and numbers for indicating biozones, retains the letter ‘Z’ to indicate the first letter of the word Zone. Indeed there are both historical and logical arguments against this use and in favor of using simply SB as abbreviation for the Shallow Benthic Zones; however, alternative solutions are discussed, We are confident that this shall help to increase clarity and promote uniformity with the planktic biozonation systems.