Synthetic chemicals are widespread in marine ecosystems, study finds

Scientists have detected a substantial amount of synthetic chemicals, such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals, in the ocean, according to new research.

The distribution of human-made chemicals in the ocean is widespread but especially abundant in coastal areas, a paper published Monday in Nature Geoscience found.

Researchers studying carbon cycling in the ocean were consistently observing datasets that identified the presence of manmade chemicals in Earth’s oceans, which sparked the initial interest in the study, Daniel Petras, a biochemist at the University of California, Riverside, and lead author of the paper, told ABC News.

They then obtained datasets of 2,315 seawater samples from coastal areas, coral reefs and open ocean regions within the Pacific to look into what specific molecules were within samples of dissolved organic matter in the ocean.

The findings made clear that synthetic chemicals produced for agricultural, industrial and medical applications are ending up in the ocean, according to researchers.

The extent at which the molecules from synthetic chemicals were present was "significant," Petras said. Researchers directly identified 248 different human-made chemicals within the samples.

Pesticides and pharmaceuticals were not the most common chemicals found but rather compounds from everyday products such as hygiene products.

In coastal areas, up to one-fifth of dissolved organic matter had tested for synthetic chemicals, according to researchers.

Industrial chemicals, such as those used in plastics and hygiene products, were found across all marine environments, while pharmaceuticals and pesticides were more common closer to shore.

This is the first time so many datasets were used to get an inventory of anthropogenic -- or human-caused -- changes to the organic matter pool within marine ecosystems, Petras said. 

The research could help scientists better understand how human-made chemicals impact marine ecosystems.

"We hope that our data can provide new rationales to what kind of like molecules we should actually study, and also what molecules should be looked at," Petras said.

More studies will be needed in the future to study how these chemicals accumulate within the food chain, Petras added.

"It's clear we are changing basically every ecosystem, and I think we need to better understand and mitigate eventual consequences," he said.