  Numerical models are starting to be used for determining the future behaviour
of seismic faults and fault networks. Their final goal would be to forecast
future large earthquakes. In order to use them for this task, it is necessary
to synchronize each model with the current status of the actual fault or fault
network it simulates (just as, for example, meteorologists synchronize their
models with the atmosphere by incorporating current atmospheric data in them).
However, lithospheric dynamics is largely unobservable: important parameters
cannot (or can rarely) be measured in Nature. Earthquakes, though, provide
indirect but measurable clues of the stress and strain status in the
lithosphere, which should be helpful for the synchronization of the models. The
rupture area is one of the measurable parameters of earthquakes. Here we
explore how it can be used to at least synchronize fault models between
themselves and forecast synthetic earthquakes. Our purpose here is to forecast
synthetic earthquakes in a simple but stochastic (random) fault model. By
imposing the rupture area of the synthetic earthquakes of this model on other
models, the latter become partially synchronized with the first one. We use
these partially synchronized models to successfully forecast most of the
largest earthquakes generated by the first model. This forecasting strategy
outperforms others that only take into account the earthquake series. Our
results suggest that probably a good way to synchronize more detailed models
with real faults is to force them to reproduce the sequence of previous
earthquake ruptures on the faults. This hypothesis could be tested in the
future with more detailed models and actual seismic data.
