Abstract <p>An analytical layer-element method (ALEM) is developed for the transient response of stratified cross-anisotropic porous saturated media subjected to horizontal and vertical impulsive loadings. The governing formulations of Biot’s elastodynamic theory in the cylindrical coordinate system are decoupled with the aid of Hankel-Laplace joint transforms and Fourier series expansion to obtain the general solutions. The dynamic stiffness matrices for each single layer are derived by utilizing the general solutions. The total stiffness matrix is assembled by the single layer matrices on the basis of continuity conditions at the interface as well as boundary conditions. Finally, the fundamental solutions of porous saturated media are developed via the ALEM. The accuracy of the proposed formulations is demonstrated by comparison with existing solutions and the numerical solutions from ABAQUS. Several numerical examples are given in this paper to explore the effects of force depth, load type, material stratification, anisotropy, and material compressibility on the transient response. The results reveal that among the different transient load types, namely step, rectangular impulse, sinusoidal, and triangular impulse forces, the step force induces the largest transient response while the triangular impulse force yields the smallest. With increasing load burial depth, the dynamic responses decrease significantly and the time to reach peak values prolongs. The medium with larger cross-anisotropy parameters exhibits smaller dynamic responses, and the stiffness of the top soil layer dominates the displacement response, whereas the influence of material stratification on pore pressure is negligible.</p>