Semicolon

Semicolon

A semicolon is used:

to separate 2 or more complete thoughts (where each thought could be a standalone sentence)

Notifications of foodborne disease in Australia are increasing; between 2000 and 2010, the number of notifications per year doubled.

to separate items in a list when 1 or more of the items contains commas (see Comma)
to separate elements of references in some reference styles (see References)
in some specialised scientific terminology (eg some chemical names, and chromosome and gene terminology).