The Grímsvötn volcano frequently causes large jökulhlaups from Vatnajökull.
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It originally referred to the well-known subglacial outburst floods from Vatnajökull, Iceland, which are triggered by geothermal heating and occasionally by a volcanic subglacial eruption, but it is now used to describe any large and abrupt release of water from a subglacial or proglacial lake/reservoir.
The lake is situated rather far from civilisation at the south-western border of Vatnajökull at an altitude of 670 m above sea level.
The glacier was used as the setting for the opening sequence (set in Siberia) of the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill, in which Bond (played for the last time by Roger Moore) eliminated a host of armed villains before escaping in a submarine to Alaska.
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In November 2011, the glacier was used as a shooting location for the second season of the HBO fantasy TV series Game of Thrones.
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With an area of 8,100 km², Vatnajökull is the largest ice cap in Europe by volume (3,100 km³) and the second largest (after Austfonna on Nordaustlandet, Norway) in area (not counting the still larger Severny Island ice cap of Novaya Zemlya, Russia, which may be regarded as located in the extreme northeast of Europe).
The village of Fljótsdalshreppur is located close to the glacier of Vatnajökull and to the lake of Lagarfljót, near the valley of Fljótsdalur.