Multicomponent magnetization has been revealed in several Cambrian and Ordovician sedimentary units from localities in Hebei and Shandong provinces of the North China Block (NCB). A well-defined component with lower unblocking temperature is characterized by northerly declination and moderate to steep inclination with both polarities, and postdates the Late Cretaceous folding. The pole position derived from the overprinted directions is close to both the Cretaceous pole for the NCB as well as the present North Pole. The overprint is not a simple thermal remanent magnetization, but is probably a chemical remanent magnetization imposed at moderately elevated temperature during the major episode of regional deformation in the Late Mesozoic. The higher unblocking temperature characteristic components pass reversal, baked contact, and fold tests, and are internally consistent with rocks of different lithologies from widely distributed localities. Moreover, the data exhibit an overall similarity in the magnetic polarity pattern in the stratigraphic sequence at sampled localities. Hence the high unblocking temperature characteristic component was probably acquired at or near the time of deposition. The Cambrian and Ordovician paleopoles are somewhat different from the other coeval poles for the NCB, which are based on much less data and do not pass as many reliability tests, but all imply that the NCB was in the equatorial zone in the Early Paleozoic. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1992