For instance, in the illustration at the top of the article, energy is indeed carried in the horizontal direction. However, in the vertical direction, the field strength drops off exponentially with increasing distance above the surface. This leaves most of the field concentrated in a thin boundary layer very close to the interface; for that reason, it is referred to as a surface wave. However, despite energy flowing horizontally, along the vertical there is no net propagation of energy away from (or toward) the surface, so that one could properly describe the field as being "evanescent in the vertical direction". This is one example of the context dependence of the term.