Stepovers have been widely suggested to be important structural boundaries that control earthquake rupture extent and therefore the size of earthquakes. Previous studies suggested that ~4-5 km wide stepovers are likely to arrest fault rupture. However, recent earthquake cases show that even much wider stepovers (e.g., ≥7-8 km wide) sometimes may not effectively impede seismic rupture propagation, which requires us to further explore cascading rupture mechanism of large earthquakes at wider

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... vers. Here, we constrained slip rates and paleoseismic earthquakes of two fault sections that bound a constraining stepover with width of approximately 7-8 km along the southern segment of the Daliangshan fault along the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Multiple landform offset and radiocarbon dating results constrained that the two fault sections show a moderate slip rate at approximately 5 mm/yr. Moreover, three or four paleoseismic events Z through W, in 1489 AD, 620-515 BC, 4475-3700 BC, and 6265-4510 BC, were revealed on the Jiaojihe fault section. Based on the aforementioned results, we suggest that the most recent seismic event might exhibit a jump over the restraining stepover, whereas ruptures of the older events might be arrested by the stepover. Furthermore, we suggest that moderate slip-rate faults might have similar potential with that of high slip-rate faults to rupture through wider stepovers, which increases us in understanding the generation of cascading ruptures on strike-slip faults and is helpful for evaluating seismic hazards.