Oceanographers announced Monday they've detected trace amounts of radiation off the coast of California linked to Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant accident in 2011.

They are, however, quick to add the levels of radioactivity are far below those that could pose a considerable health risk.

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The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute said on its website it's identified cesium-134, a radioisotope traceable only to Fukushima, in water samples taken about 160 kilometers off the coast of Eureka in Northern California.

Using sophisticated equipment capable of measuring minute quantities of radioactivity, the marine researchers found less than two becquerels per cubic meter of radioactivity in the samples.

Woods Hole oceanographer Ken Buesseler said the amount of cesium-134 in the new offshore data is at levels deemed too small to cause any serious threat to human health or marine life.

Buesseler added the amount detected is even 1,000 times lower than what the Environmental Protection Agency set for safe drinking water.

This is the first time radioactivity from the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant accident has been detected in U.S. waters. Massive amounts of contaminated waters have continued to leak since then.

The radioactive contaminants traveled across the Pacific, driven largely by ocean currents.

Because no state or federal agency is currently monitoring Pacific waters for radiation from the disabled Fukushima plant, Buesseler voluntarily launched a crowd-funded program to involve the public in gathering samples along the west coast of North America and Hawaii.

Analysis of some 50 of the seawater samples from Bering Strait to San Diego showed no signs of cesium-134 from Fukushima.

But this summer, Buesseler teamed up with a group of volunteers on the research vessel "Point Sur" to take offshore samples from Alaska to Eureka. As yet, 20 samples were completely analyzed and 10 are positive for cesium-134.

Bueseller believes this spread of radioactivity across the Pacific demands careful and consistent monitoring.

"Crowd-sourced funding continues to be an important way to engage the public and reveal what is going on near the coast. But ocean scientists need to do more work offshore to understand how ocean currents will be transporting cesium on shore," he said.

TagsFukushima Nuclear Plant, March 2011 earthquake, Japan plant, Northern California Coast, Fukushima radiation, Nuclear Radiation