Figure 11. Shipboard and Rice University carbonate-content combined data sets. Note that the vertical axes have been scaled to emphasize the timing of the lowest carbonate-content values between the three sites. A. Hole 998A. B. Hole 999A. C. 1000A. Five carbonate-dissolution episodes (I-V) are identified and emphasized by the shaded column. The interval of the bundled five episodes, synchronous between the three Sites 998, 999, and 1000, is referred to as the Caribbean carbonate crash, which lasted for ~2 m.y. Note that times with low carbonate values are already observed prior to the onset of the carbonate crash in Holes 999A and 1000A, an interval referred to here as the carbonate precursor. This pattern contrasts with the one observed at Site 998, where no significant carbonate precursor is observed. Similarities in the pattern of the carbonate-content variations between the three sites were compared statistically (see Table 3).