Chenier

Chenier or Chénier is a sandy or shelly beach ridge that is part of a strand plain, called a “chenier plain,” consisting of cheniers separated by intervening mud-flat deposits with marsh and swamp vegetation. Cheniers are typically 1 to 6 m high, tens of km long, hundreds of metres wide, and often wooded. Chenier plains can be tens of km wide. Cheniers and associated chenier plains are associated with shorelines characterized by generally low wave energy, low gradient, muddy shorelines, and abundant sediment supply. The name is derived from the French word for wood, “chêne,” meaning oak, which grows on chenier ridges within southwest Louisiana.