The Kamchatka River and the surrounding central side valley are flanked by large volcanic belts containing around 160 volcanoes, 29 of them still active.

Somewhat more accessible are the three volcanoes visible from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky: Koryaksky, Avachinsky, and Kozelsky.

In the center of Kamchatka is Eurasia's world-famous Geyser Valley which was partly destroyed by a massive mudslide in June 2007.

[3] Owing to the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench, deep-focus seismic events and tsunamis are fairly common.

A pair of megathrust earthquakes occurred off the coast on October 16, 1737, and on November 4, 1952, in the magnitude of ~9.3 and 8.2 respectively.