  We study front propagation problems for forced mean curvature flows and their
phase field variants that take place in stratified media, i.e., heterogeneous
media whose characteristics do not vary in one direction. We consider phase
change fronts in infinite cylinders whose axis coincides with the symmetry axis
of the medium. Using the recently developed variational approaches, we provide
a convergence result relating asymptotic in time front propagation in the
diffuse interface case to that in the sharp interface case, for suitably
balanced nonlinearities of Allen-Cahn type. The result is established by using
arguments in the spirit of $\Gamma$-convergence, to obtain a correspondence
between the minimizers of an exponentially weighted Ginzburg-Landau type
functional and the minimizers of an exponentially weighted area type
functional. These minimizers yield the fastest traveling waves invading a given
stable equilibrium in the respective models and determine the asymptotic
propagation speeds for front-like initial data. We further show that
generically these fronts are the exponentially stable global attractors for
this kind of initial data and give sufficient conditions under which complete
phase change occurs via the formation of the considered fronts.
