The Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences (XMAS 2025)

The orbital-scale variability of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) has been influenced by multiple factors, such as atmospheric CO₂ concentration, global ice volume, and insolation. Proxies for weathering activity and paleoproductivity provide potential insights into the driving forces of its variability. We documented multi-proxy data at IODP Site U1445, located in the Mahanadi Basin of the northwestern Bay of Bengal, to find out the ISM variability over the last 200 ka. The proxy records, such as Nd/Sr isotopes of detrital particles, clay mineral compositions of the fine-grained sediments, biogenic opal and CaCO₃, organic carbon contents, and carbon isotopes of organic matter, represent sediment sources, weathering patterns, and paleoproductivity related to the ISM variability. Detrital Nd/Sr isotope data and clay mineral compositions suggest that the sediments at Site U1445 originated mainly from the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers without dramatic provenance change between the glacial and interglacial periods. The weathering activity inferred from clay mineral compositions and the paleoproductivity shift reconstructed by biogenic opal and CaCO₃ contents suggest that the land-sea interactions were closely linked to the ISM precipitation between the glacial and interglacial periods. High precipitation by the strong ISM resulted in intense chemical weathering and dominant biogenic opal deposition during the interglacial periods. In contrast, low precipitation by the weak ISM led to reduced chemical weathering and predominant CaCO₃ deposition during the glacial periods. Further, the ISM variability driving the land-sea interactions in the Mahanadi Basin was modulated by the Indonesian throughflow.
 

Indian monsoon, glacial, Indonesian Throughflow