This paper is concerned with what British Earth scientists say about their objects of study - whether glaciers, trees, parts of the atmosphere, areas of sea and ocean, or grains of sand – in extended life story interviews collected recently by National Life Stories, at the British Library. I argue that life story oral history gives Earth scientists a rare opportunity to reflect at length on scientific practice and that, in doing so, these scientists often acknowledge the role of particular places and materials in scientific work. It is in these unhurried, autobiographical stories, rather than in tightly written scientific papers, that Earth scientists link theories and observations to the individuality of field sites and samples. Particular expanses of ice, depths of water, masses of air, and collections of minerals seem to play along, or not, in these stories of science.