Recent experiments have shown that it is possible to excite surface plasmons on metallic films by injecting tunnel electrons from a sharp metal tip located in the immediate proximity of the sample. When working close to a bare metal film, the excitation of surface plasmons gives rise to typical circular patterns that can be recorded in both image and Fourier planes. Important physical parameters of surface plasmon propagation such as their propagation length can be extracted from these images. In this Letter, we discuss theoretically the physics of the plasmonic excitations induced by a STM tip. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.