Pulse Stabilization in a Strongly Heterogeneous Layered Medium

A strongly heterogeneous strati ed elastic medium occupies a slab of nite thickness. The medium parameters vary randomly with correlation length of O( ). A pulse with O( ) wavelength enters the slab at one end. It travels coherently through the slab with a slowness near to that predicted by e ective medium theory. Relative to a certain realization-dependent co-moving frame of reference the pulse stabilizes to its mean as tends to zero. It broadens as it travels as in the O'Doherty-Anstey theory, but here the variations in medium properties are not assumed to be small as in that theory, and the pulse travels with a travel time di ering signi cantly from the characteristic rst arrival time.