EUROPEAN MESOZOIC-CENOZOIC CHAROPHYTE BIOZONATION

Charophytes are lacustrine or brackish macrophytes, which proved to be useful in correlations between marine and non-marine sediments. This is the reason why the charophyte biozonation has been included in the general biostratigraphical chart of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Sequence Stratigraphy Project of the European Basins. Charophytes constitute a relatively acute ''biostratigraphical tool'' for late Jurassic, early Cretaceous, late Cretaceous and Palaeogene. Nevertheless in the fossi l record, it still exists poor documentation on some stratigraphical i ntervals, especially for the Rhetian-Middle Oxfordian interval, the la te Turonian-Santonian interval and for the Pliocene-Holocene interval, The Mesozoic and Cenozoic charophyte biozonation is composed of 6 bio zones for the Triassic, 16 biozones for the Upper Jurassic and Cretace ous, 20 biozones for the Palaeogene and 4 biozones for the Neogene. In our paper, we define the Charophyte zones with a brief comment on the ir floral assemblages and on their correlations with other groups incl uded in the chart (especially ammonites, nannofossils and mammals).