Abstract In the southern Pyrenees foreland, the Cardona salt diapir has a 250 m high stem and a small bulb, which is partially exposed. The internal structure of the diapir consists of a main sheath fold divided by a shear zone. This shear zone crosses two salt units with different initial properties. In this paper, a qualitative analysis of the fabric both units crossed by the shear zone and a 3D quantitative morphological and textural analysis of the unit with small grain size were carried out. In this unit, the fabric is characterized by a grain size similar to that of the initial fabric, disappearance of primary structures, a poor grain orientation with the long axis statistically at 20° of the shear boundary, and a strong {100} crystallographic preferred orientation. The unit composed of coarser grains shows a disappearance of primary structures. The fabric changes in both units and the strong decrease in water content during deformation suggest that fluid-assisted synkinematic recrystallization was dominant. The different behaviour of the two studied units on shear deformation also suggests that the initial grain size and water content were the main factors controlling fabric changes.