The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO - http://emso.eu/) is a consortium of partners sharing in a common strategic framework scientific facilities. Formally it is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), legal framework created for pan-European large-scale research infrastructures. This consortium gathers 8 countries (France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, UK and Spain) and constitutes one of the underwater parts of COPERNICUS. 

EMSO has the scientific objective of long-term monitoring, mainly in real-time, of environmental processes related to the interaction between the geosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, including natural hazards. It is composed of several deep-seafloor and water column observatories, deployed at key sites around European waters, from the Arctic to the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, to the Black Sea, thus forming a widely distributed pan-European infrastructure (http://emso.eu/observatories)

EMSO-PT organizes the Portuguese participation in the EMSO-ERIC initiative, bringing together 16 research institutions in the frame of the "Sistema de Apoio à Investigação Científica e Tecnológica (SAICT), FCT". The Portuguese contribution is in two areas of the infrastructure, located in Mid-Atlantic ridge near Azores (Azores node) and Gulf of Cadiz and North Portugal continental shelf (Iberian Margin node). CCMAR is the responsible for the water column observatory of the Iberian Margin node.