Dating the “red beds” of the Eastern Moroccan High Plateaus: Evidence from late Late Cretaceous charophytes and dinosaur eggshells☆

Abstract A new locality in the poorly known “red beds” of Tendrara (High Plateaus, Morocco) has yielded four charophytes species ( Feistiella anluensis , Lamprothamnium stipitatum , Peckisphaera portezueloensis , Platychara caudata ) and dinosaur eggshells ( Pseudomegaloolithus atlasi ). These red beds, which overly the Cenomanian-Turonian marine deposits, generally assigned to “Senonian” based on geometric position, are directly dated by these fossils: the charophytes species and dinosaur oospecies association indicates a Campano-Maastrichtian or Maastrichtian age for these calm floodplain deposits.