Joao Rocha

João Rocha is Vice President of Exploration at Algo Grande Copper Corp. (TSX-V: ALGR), a Vancouver-based explorer whose 100%-owned Adelita project in Sonora, Mexico hosts the Cerro Grande copper-silver-gold discovery. A skarn is rock formed when hot, metal-bearing fluids rising from a porphyry intrusion — a large body of igneous rock that commonly feeds metal deposits — replace limestone, often concentrating copper, silver, and gold in the process. Appointed in January 2026, Rocha runs the targeting and drilling that are defining how large Cerro Grande becomes, so his program's results are the primary evidence on whether this early-stage copper discovery keeps growing.

He is an exploration geologist with about a decade of international experience advancing early-stage projects across North America, South America, Africa, Scandinavia, and Europe, in both public and private markets. Rocha holds the European Geologist (EurGeol) professional title, a Master's degree in geology, and memberships in the Portuguese Association of Geologists and the Society of Economic Geologists. Algo Grande recruited him from the Cascabel copper-gold project in Ecuador; chief executive Enrico Gay cited his "deep project knowledge from the Cascabel team" and his part in the process that brought Adelita under the company's control.

His method pairs geoscience with data. At Adelita he leads geophysical reprocessing, AI-based target generation, and field programs. That work produced 32 ranked drill targets — 18 from coincident geophysics, geochemistry, and structure, and 14 from machine-learning prospectivity modeling — and helped steer Phase II drilling to the project's best results, including 30.23 metres grading 1.5% CuEq (copper equivalent: the combined value of the copper, silver, and gold in rock, expressed as a single copper grade), with 3.55 metres at 9.4% CuEq, and a combined 68.43 metres at 1.2% CuEq across two stacked zones confirmed in September 2026. In the company's release, Rocha said the results confirm Cerro Grande is "not a single lens but a multi-horizon skarn system with real vertical continuity."

For investors, following Rocha means watching whether Adelita grows from a single discovery into a district-scale system. Mineralization remains open along strike, up-dip, and at depth; an August 2026 $3 million financing funded an expanded Phase II; and the company has outlined porphyry targets beneath the skarn. His stated priorities — disciplined, data-driven exploration and de-risking the geology — are how an explorer eventually earns a mineral resource estimate (a NI 43-101-compliant tally, under Canadian reporting standards, of how much metal a deposit contains).