Thanks, Why is the second blank inexpensive? There appears be no logical link(without calling upon outside knowledge) between the abundance of of the ore on the land surface and the fact that a process of extracting ore in the river would be expensive.

@carcass
I agree with @newtaraday. How do we know that underwater recovery is an expensive process?

If the ore is abundant on the surface itself, why would we want to recover it from deep water?

Guys, this is not a critical reasoning question.

Considering that on the surface the ore is abundant and consequently the costs to obtain it are not that high, then in deep water, the process will not going to become inexpensive. It will more costly.

On the surface the cost is 10$, suppose, in deep water is 11$ (it must be higher for mandatorily, because of is reasonable to think that even the gasoline of the bathyscaphe cost more to go down at 1000 meters rather than 100 meters, just to make the idea), then 11$ is still more expensive than 10$.


Therefore, in comparison, it is very difficult that in deep water the costs will be at 9$ and on the surface will be stable at 10$.

Deepwater costs always will be \(>\) of the surface costs.

Regards
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May be we can think in this way...give emphases on underline part.

Since frequently located surface ore is (i)____________ and recovery is less costly; recovery of underwater ore is not (ii)____________ procedure.

frequently is hint for (i)

Less costly is hint for (ii)

Surface water is opposite of under water in this case

Hence the answer is logical.

_______________________________________
Let me know if I am wrong.