Dennis Moore

Dennis Moore is an exploration geologist with more than 35 years of international experience and the founder, President, and Chairman of Hayasa Metals Inc. (TSX-V: HAY), a Vancouver-based junior company exploring for copper-gold porphyry deposits — large, low-grade systems that host much of the world's copper — in Armenia. His relevance to resource investors rests on a verifiable discovery record: he found and drilled the Tocantinzinho gold deposit in Brazil, which Eldorado Gold later acquired and developed into its first producing gold mine in that country. Armenia matters because it sits on the Tethyan belt, the mountain chain running from Europe through Turkey and Iran that hosts many major copper-gold deposits, yet remains lightly explored.

Moore began his career with major mining companies in Australia and the South West Pacific, then worked in Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil with companies associated with mining entrepreneur Ross Beaty. In 2004, with Brazauro Resources, he discovered and drilled Tocantinzinho in the Tapajós district of northern Brazil; Eldorado bought the project and the mine began production in 2024, with a royalty payable to Moore under agreements disclosed in Eldorado's filings. Hayasa's corporate biography also credits him with involvement in at least four other gold discoveries: Amayapampa in Bolivia, and Cuiú Cuiú, Coringa, and Cajueiro in Brazil.

Moore founded Hayasa's predecessor, Fremont Gold, and acts as the company's Qualified Person under NI 43-101 — National Instrument 43-101, the Canadian rulebook governing how miners report technical results — meaning he reviews and signs off on Hayasa's exploration disclosures himself. At the 100%-owned Urasar district in northern Armenia, his team works district-scale: geological mapping, soil sampling, AMT geophysics (audio-magnetotellurics, a method that images conductivity at depth to outline buried porphyry systems), and diamond drilling. Reading the 2025 Phase 2 drill results, he noted feldspar and actinolite alteration in the deeper holes and concluded the project "may be targeting the apex or margin of a larger, concealed mineralized system" — the same vector-based logic that found Tocantinzinho.

Major-miner attention has followed. Teck Resources took a strategic equity stake in 2024 and optioned the Vardenis copper-gold project, funding exploration there before electing to end its option in September 2026; Hayasa then signed a term sheet with another major mining company for a strategic exploration alliance. For investors, following Moore is a look at how a working geologist builds exploration value from a first-mover position in an underexplored jurisdiction — and the Urasar drill results and the new alliance are the near-term catalysts to watch.