The Permian (approximately 255 million years old) Glass Mountains are given the name from the vast reef complex that was preserved as calcite shells were re-mineralized into durable silica or quartz. The shards of shell sparkled in the sun light and resembled glass. Living in the sand, algae, coral, and other nooks and crannies live microscopic organisms. Ostracoda are aquatic bivalved crustaceans that look like shrimp in a clam shell but can fit on the period at the end of this sentence. Sohn was the first to described the ostracode fauna in this paper.