Comma Before Participal Phrase

I’m studying for the SAT and ran into this issue on a practice test. My prepbook says that commas shouldn’t be used between an independent and dependent clause in that order. To me “creating…” constitutes a dependent clause. This is more apparent when the gerumd creating is replaced with to create. I’m not understanding why the correct answer choice (which I agree is the best answer) uses a comma before creating. This is not an official test from college board so a typo/error is possible in the answer choice. I simply want to know if this is the case. I’m also curious to whether the phrase “creating a landscape” would be a gerund or participle phrase in this sense.