During a full-house presentation to the American Geophysical Union’s annual conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Cameron and his team of scientists presented some initial results from the expedition.

Previous reports from the Challenger Deep (10,913 meters beneath the surface of the ocean) weren’t very encouraging: the only sample returned from Cameron’s piloted journey was a 50-mililiter scoop of mud. A hydraulic leak occurred immediately after arrival on the seafloor, rendering the sediment coring machinery ineffectual and turning a sample collection expedition into an observational one.