Indian monsoon

Indian monsoon provides majority of the annual rainfall to India. Its evolution has been little understood. Recently, researchers have analysed sediment from the Bay of Bengal and found that the present Indian monsoon system is as old as 27 million years. Change in sediments is directly linked to the change in monsoon and presence of minerals depends on the intensity of monsoon. To understand the fluctuation patterns of monsoon rains, radiogenic isotope analysis was conducted and then tested for the presence of clay minerals.