Abstract
The paper is concerned with development of the asymptotic formulation for surface wave field induced by vertical surface stress under the effect of gravity in the short-wave region. The approach relies on the methodology of hyperbolic-elliptic models for the Rayleigh wave and results in a regularly perturbed hyperbolic equation on the surface acting as a boundary condition for the elliptic equation governing decay over the interior. A special value of the Poisson's ratio v = 0.25 is pointed out, at which the effect of gravity disappears at leading order.