The North China Craton (NCC) hosts numerous iron skarn deposits, which are the most important source of high- grade iron ores in China. However, the comprehensive and systematic study of ore- forming geochronology for iron mineralization of the NCC are scarce, which hampers the understanding of its tectonic setting. The Zhangjiawa iron skarn deposit in the Laiwu district of Shandong Province is the most important high- grade iron deposit in the eastern NCC. The iron orebodies are mainly located along the contact zones between the Kuangshan dioritic intrusion and Middle Ordovician carbonate rocks, and hosted in fractures overprinting the unconformity between the Carboniferous Benxi Formation and middle Ordovician strata. The retrograde skarn stage is the main hydrothermal iron mineralization stage of the Zhangjiawa deposit, showing magnetite is closely intergrown with hydrothermal phlogopite. In this study, the two phlogopite samples from the Zhangjiawa I and Gangli mining areas yielded 40Ar/39Ar plateau ages of 129. 7±0. 8 Ma and 131. 5±1. 2 Ma (2σ), respectively. Using integrated information about mineral paragenesis and the U- Pb ages of magmatic zircon from the Kuangshan intrusion and hydrothermal titanite from skarns, we infer that the 40Ar/39Ar system in phlogopite remain closed with ore deposition, indicating that the Zhangjiawa iron skarn deposit formed in the early stage of Early Cretaceous about 130 Ma. In combination with existing isotopic age data of other iron skarn deposits and related intrusions in North China Craton, we conclude that iron skarn mineralization throughout the North China took place at ca. 130 Ma, coupled with the culmination of lithospheric thinning and destruction of the North China Craton, and show a genetic link between the two.