We will give a semiclassical description of surface waves in a three-dimensional elastic medium, which is stratified near the boundary at some scale comparable to the wave length. The analysis is based on the work of Colin de Verdiere on acoustic surface waves. The description is geometric on the boundary and locally spectral "beneath". Eigenvalues of some 1D differential operator are effective Hamiltonians for surface waves. We will also discuss Weyl's law for counting surface modes, decoupling of surface waves under symmetry conditions, and related inverse problems.