Michael Vecchione of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and colleagues Michael Unger, Ellen Harvey and George Vadas from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science said the chemical contaminants were found in nine species of cephalopods -- a class of organisms that includes octopods, squids, cuttlefishes and nautiluses.

"It was surprising to find measurable and sometimes high amounts of toxic pollutants in such a deep and remote environment," Vecchione said. Among the chemicals detected were tributyltin; polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs; brominated diphenyl ethers; and dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT. The contaminants are known as persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, because they don't degrade and persist in the environment for a very long time.

Cephalopods are important to the diet of cetaceans, including whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Although there have been reports of accumulation of POPs in the blubber and tissues of whales and other predatory marine mammals and some deep-sea fish, the researchers said their study is the first to focus on deep-sea cephalopods.

The findings are to be reported in the Marine Pollution Bulletin.