Most current interpretations of lower crustal seismic reflectivity suggest the existence of fine-scale ($\approx100mthick)layeredstructuresatdepth.Typicalcommon−midpoint(CMP)stackedimagesofdeepstructuresare,however,noisyandshowdiscontinuousreflectionscharacterizedbynumeroussubhorizontalsegments.Presentinterpretationtechniquescannotdefinitivelyresolvewhethersuchareflectionresponseisattributabletoheterogeneityatthetargetorwhethertheseismicimageisdistortedbypropagationeffectsandcontaminatedbynoise.Thequantitativeassessmentoflateralheterogeneityinthedeepcrustisfundamentaltounderstandingmechanismsofcrustalformationandevolution.Here,crustalheterogeneityisrepresentedbyvelocitystructuresthatvaryrandomlyintwodimensions,withacorrelationdistancecomparabletothedominantwavelengthoftheseismicsource.SyntheticCMPseismicdataarecomputedforvariousmodelsusingafourth−orderfinite−differencesolutiontotheacousticwaveequation.AconventionaldataprocessingsequenceproducesCMPstackedsectionswithgreaterlateralcontinuitythanispresentatthetargetandanoverallappearancecomparabletothatoffield−recordeddata.Lateralcoherenceisquantifiedusingthespectralcoefficientofcoherence,appliedtotracepairshavingvariousspatialseparations.IncreasedcontinuityintheCMPstackisattributabletothedip−filteringactionofstackingandcanbecompensatedbytheapplicationofmigrationbeforestackorequivalentprocesses.Thereflectionresponseobservedincommon−shottracegathersshowsamplitudeandlateralcoherenceincreasingwithoffset,aneffectattributabletothesource−receivergeometry.Observedwavefieldcoherenceisrelatedtothecorrelationpropertiesofthetargetthroughaconvolutionalexpression.AfielddataexamplefromtheBlackForest,Germanyshowsthatenhancedcoherencecanbeexpectedinwide−anglefieldexperimentsandthatamodelhavingtwo−dimensionalheterogeneitymatchesfielddatapreviouslyinterpretedintermsofextremefine−scalelayering.Adensely−sampledfielddatasetfromtheBasinandRangeProvince,NevadashowsincreasedcoherenceforP\sb{\rm m}$P at large offsets. Observed lateral coherence values are lower than predicted for scattering purely in the Moho transition zone; coherence levels can be modeled by including scattered energy from inhomogeneities above the target zone.