An area of the plateau is an ancient volcanic field with a number of cinder cones and volcanoes, the last of which was active about 810,000 years before present.

Rivers Tsipa, Tsipikan and Amalat cut across the plateau and the Baunt Depression is located in the northwestern corner.

The Vitim Plateau is covered by larch taiga and forest steppe, as well as thickets of shrubby birches, meadows, and swampy areas in the river basins.

One theory holds that the collision between India and Asia and other tectonic processes triggered the pull-apart in the Baikal Rift.

[9] Vitim Plateau volcanic rocks are mainly alkaline to subalkaline basalts, nephelinites and melanephelinites, with phenocryst phases containing clinopyroxene, olivine and plagioclase.

[9] Petrology indicates that a complex magma production process takes place beneath the Vitim Plateau, including remelting and crystallization.