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.