Sentence Correction

Prospecting for gold during the California gold rush was a relatively easy task, because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach for anybody with a pan or shovel.
A. because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach for
B. because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, and putting gold literally within reach of
C. owing to erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that had thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, and putting gold literally within reach of
D. since erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, putting gold literally within reach for
E. since erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach of

Can someone explain the usage of because and since in this question ?
OA later.

Mixed with D and E IMO:D

"Since" is normally used when sentence is talking about a time period or an era. Here author is giving different reasons why gold was easily avialable . IMO A is correct

OA - E

@GmatKiss - can you highlight the errors in other options as well (your usual way ) and explain the usage of since/because here ?

Correct answer is option E.

Option A is wrong because "because of" is an adverbial modifier which should modify a verb. In option A it is modifying a noun "task"

Option B is wrong because of parallelism error. "thrust and putting" are not prallel.

Option C is wrong because it is a comma splice error. Before the comma, we have an indepedent clause, so after the comma we should have an dependent clause to describe the effect of the action in the independent clause. So dependent clause should have been started with the subordinate conjunction "because, since" etc.

Option D is wrong because it is a sentence fragmant. Verb is missing in the depedent clause after the comma

So option E is left and correct.

Found the below information that identifies the difference between "because of" and "because".

Certain words, such as after, before, since and until may function either as prepositions or subordinate conjunctions. However it should be noted that in some cases different words must be used as prepositions and subordinate conjunctions, in order to express similar meanings. This is illustrated in the table below.The preposition has to be followed by a noun.


Differing Prepositions and Conjunctions

Meaning - Preposition - Conjunction
for this reason - because of - because
in spite of this - despite - although
at the time when - during - while
in a similar way - like - as if

In the following example, the objects of the prepositions, and the verbs of the subordinate clauses are underlined.
Preposition: They were upset because of the delay.
Conjunction: They were upset because they were delayed.

the link where the above information was found is https://www.fortunecity.com/bally/durrus ... mch28.html

Based on above, A and B eliminated.
c uses owing to which is preposition as per :
Due to and owing to are similar in meaning to on account of and because of. They are all prepositions used with noun phrases and are often used interchangeably. They indicate that something happened as a result of something or introduce the reason for something happening:
"Since" can be used in place of "because" as subordinate conjunction to indicate the relationship between the ideas expressed in a clause and the ideas expressed in the rest of a sentence
D- that creates a relative clause and present participle "putting" gold not correct from note below
you cannot use the present participle as a predicate unless you use an auxiliary verb with it -- the word group "I walking to the store" is an incomplete and ungrammatical sentence, while word group "I am walking to the store" is a complete sentence. You will often use the present participle as a modifier.

Prospecting for gold during the California gold rush was a relatively easy task, because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach for anybody with a pan or shovel.
A. because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach for
B. because of erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, and putting gold literally within reach of
C. owing to erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that had thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, and putting gold literally within reach of
D. since erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and volcanic activity that thrust ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds to the surface, putting gold literally within reach for
E. since erosion, prehistoric glacier movement, and ancient, gold-bearing riverbeds thrust to the surface by volcanic activity put gold literally within reach of

E is correct!

Correct idiom: within reach of!

Regards,
GK