Over the last few decades, the city of Rio de Janeiro has been suffering from several rockfall events that cannot be related to any obvious triggering factors such as rainy seasons or earthquakes. Thus, other possible initial phenomena or causes were evaluated and natural thermal variations seem to be one of the triggering factors that contribute to these events. The mechanism associated with the daily fluctuation of temperature is capable of generating irreversible displacements, being a preparatory factor for rockfalls. In fractured rock mass, rock blocks expand, push other blocks around them, contract, and may or may not return to their original position, generating cyclical movements. The main purpose of this work is to study the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of gneiss rock discontinuities under pre-peak cyclic shear loading for different types of JRC (Joint Roughness Coefficient), normal stress variations between 100 and 1000 kPa and frequency variations between 0.1 and 0.01 Hz, ensuring an almost static speed, simulating the temperature conditions in the field. It was possible to verify that the behavior of the irreversible displacements of the tested samples was influenced by the pre-peak cyclic shear for normal stresses and low frequencies and for high normal stresses the displacement was constant and almost static, decreasing the shear strength in 2000 cycles and generating much lower levels of irreversible displacements.