Chenier

A chenier, sometimes spelled chenier with an accent, is a sandy or shelly beach ridge that forms part of a chenier plain, a strand plain made up of cheniers separated by muddy tidal flat deposits carrying marsh and swamp vegetation. Individual cheniers typically stand one to six meters high, run for tens of kilometers, and are hundreds of meters wide, forming along low energy, low gradient, muddy shorelines with an abundant sediment supply. The name comes from the Louisiana French word for oak grove, after the live oaks that often grow on the ridges.