The Shickshock Sud fault has a history of Ordovician (Taconian), Silurian (Salinic), and Devonian (Acadian) movements. Taconian deformation involving ductile dextral oblique-slip faulting is recorded in Cambrian rocks in the footwall of the Shickshock Sud fault. Metabasalt and metaarkose at amphibolite grade are converted into phyllonite and mylonitic schist. Shear bands, asymmetric garnet porphyroclasts, C–S fabrics, and mica-fish textures indicate dextral shearing. The regional sense of shear is top to west and southwest on generally southeast dipping shear zones. Hornblende of metabasalt yielded an 40Ar/39Ar age of 455.9 ± 2 Ma, and muscovite from the mylonitic schist yielded an 40Ar/39Ar age of 454.3 ± 0.9 Ma, which indicate metamorphism and deformation during the Taconian orogeny. Evidence for Silurian activity is indicated by the Salinic unconformity to the south related to normal block-faulting. Deformation features in the Ordovician and Silurian–Devonian rocks in the hanging wall were predominantly brittle and involved dextral transpression. Kinematic indicators point to predominantly dextral strike-slip movement. Kinematic analysis of brittle fault-slip data indicates that the shortening axis direction during strike-slip deformation was northwest–southeast and subhorizontal, which is essentially coaxial to the average pole of Acadian cleavage. Deformation in the hanging wall of the Shickshock Sud fault is Acadian-related. The irregular geometry of the Laurentian margin, including the Grenville basement, might be the cause for Taconian and Acadian transpression in the Gaspé Appalachians.

Geochronological studies on the timing of deformation and metamorphism along the Laurentian margin have shown that the ages of metamorphic events change along-strike within the Newfoundland – southern Quebec segment of the Canadian Appalachians. The Gaspé Peninsula is located at mid-point of the two extremities of this segment. New single-grain laser 40Ar/39Ar plateau ages solely reflect latest Middle–Late Ordovician metamorphism. Samples taken within the internal Humber zone in the Shickshock Group rocks yield 40Ar/39Ar muscovite and hornblende ages ranging from 457 to 454 Ma. Samples from the Amphibolite du Diable, the metamorphic sole of the Mont Albert ophiolite, yield 40Ar/39Ar muscovite and hornblende ages ranging from 459 to 457 Ma. Ordovician ages of the internal Humber zone are consistent with 40Ar/39Ar ages from southern Quebec and are interpreted as the result of the emplacement onto the margin of both the ophiolite and its metamorphic sole.

Two phases of penetrative deformation are documented in the Taconian hinterland of the Appalachian orogen in the Gaspé Peninsula. D1 is associated with the obduction of the Mont‐Albert ophiolite onto the Paleozoic Laurentian margin, whereas D2 corresponds to later transport of allochthons across the margin. In the metamorphic sole, S1 is a SE‐dipping mylonitic fabric with a downdip lineation. In underlying metabasalts, D1 is characterized by NW‐overturned and recumbent folds, and a subhorizontal S1 schistosity with an ENE‐trending orogen‐parallel lineation. D2 is characterized by a S2 steeply dipping penetrative axial‐planar crenulation cleavage and NE‐trending F2 folds. The intraoceanic thrusting of ophiolite is dated at 465 Ma (early D1) whereas emplacement of ophiolite and subsequent deformation of the margin was recorded by isotopic signatures between 459 and 456 Ma (late D1). D2 is dated at 448 Ma throughout the hinterland. Taconian transpressive deformation is related to an oblique collision within the Quebec reentrant of the Canadian Appalachians during the Ordovician.