Silicon ablation by a single ultrashort laser pulse is simulated through a computer model. The agreement between results obtained through the model and experimental data found in the literature supports the hypothesis made by the authors in considering thermal evaporation as the dominant ablation mechanism in silicon. Two distinctive thresholds are defined for the ablation procedure leading to a better interpretation of experimental data. The dependence of ablation fluence thresholds on both wavelength and pulse width is discussed. An approximate analytical model describing the crater formation process is proposed and indicative results are presented. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.