  The tribology of a sliding elastic continuum in contact with a disordered
substrate is investigated analytically and numerically via a bead-spring model.
The deterministic dynamics of this system exhibits a depinning transition at a
finite driving force, with complex spatial-temporal dynamics including
stick-slip events of all sizes. These behaviors can be understood completely by
mapping the system to the well-known problem of a directed-path in {\em
higher-dimensional } random media.
