The dry lakebed of Railroad Valley Playa, Nevada is located at 1350 m above sea level (38.504° N latitude, 115.692° W longitude). It is a desert site with no vegetation with an overall size approximately 15 km by 15 km. 

Typical atmospheric conditions at the site include an average aerosol optical depth at 550 nm of 0.060 ^[1]. The reflectance of the playa is generally greater than 0.3 and relatively flat spectrally except for the blue portion of the spectrum and an absorption feature in the shortwave infrared. Ground-based measurements of the directional reflectance characteristics of the playa show it to be nearly lambertian out to view angles of 30 degrees for incident solar zenith angles seen for overpasses of Terra and Landsat. ^[2]