Rautatientorin Metroasema Subway Art, Detail 4a

I like the pelecypod shell in the sculpted matrix. Any insight as to why the artist used it in this fashion? Reminds me of a coffee-table book of the 1960s or 1970s titled THE SHELL: FIVE HUNDRED MILLION YEARS OF INSPIRED DESIGN. A clam makes a shell based on the cone but with torsion. If you want to see a basic cone motif in shelled invertebrates, check out some of the silicified inarticulate brachiopods of the Edinburg formation (Upper Ordovician of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, 455-456 Ma) that come out of the rock when it is etched in HCl or some other appropriate acid. You see a cone a little off center with the other valve being essentially a flat, circular barrier protecting the soft-bodied animal in the interior. I feel sorry for the wingnut Republicans I meet in Houston whose idea of communing with nature is clearing thousands of acres of prairie for single-family residences and placing a drilling rigs offshore from every beach in the state (and along every other coastal state's waterfront).