【单选题】

The ocean bottom, a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of theEarth, is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharteD、Until about a century ago, the deep-ocean floor was completely inaccessible, hidden beneath waters averaging over 3 600 meters deep. Totally without light and subjected to intense pressures hundreds of times greater than at theEarth’s surface, the deep ocean bottom is a hostile environment to humans, in some ways as forbidding and remote as the void of outer space.

Although researchers have taken samples of deep-ocean rocks and sediments for over a century, the first detailed global investigation of the ocean bottom did not actually start until 1968, with the beginning of the National Science Foundation’sDeep SeaDrilling ProjectDSDP). Using techniques first developed for the offshore oil and gas industry, theDSDP’s drill ship, the GlomarChallenger, was able to maintain a steady position on the ocean’s surface and drill in very deep waters, extracting samples of sediments and rocks from the ocean floor.
The GlomarChallenger completed 96 voyages in a 15-year research program that ended in November 1983,During this time, the vessel logged 600 000 kilometers and took almost 20 000 core samples of seabed sediments and rocks at 624 drilling sites around the worlD、The GlomarChallenger’s core samples have allowed geologists to reconstruct what the planet looked like hundreds of millions of years ago and to calculate what it will probably lo0k like millions of years in the future. Today, largely on the strength of evidence gathered during the GlomarChallenger’s voyages, nearly all earth scientists agree on the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift that explain many of the geological processes that shape theEarth.
The cores of sediment drilled by the GlomarChallenger have also yielded information critical to understanding the world’s past climates.Deep-ocean sediments provide a climatic record stretching back hundreds of millions of years, because they are largely isolated from the mechanical erosion and the intense chemical and biological activity that rapidly destroy much land-based evidence of past climates. This record has already provided insights into the patterns and causes of past climatic change information that may be used to predict future climates.
The author mentions outer space in the first paragraph because ______.
A、theEarth’s climate millions of years ago was similar to conditions in outer space
B、it is similar to the ocean floor in being alien to the human environment
C、rock formations in outer space are similar to those found on the ocean floor
D、techniques used by scientists to explore outer space were similar to those used in ocean exploration