In British English, the word 'asphalt' is used to refer to a mixture of mineral aggregate and asphalt/bitumen (also called tarmac in common parlance). When bitumen is mixed with clay it is usually called asphaltum. The earlier word 'asphaltum' is now archaic and not commonly used.[citation needed] In American English, 'asphalt' is equivalent to the British 'bitumen'. However, 'asphalt' is also commonly used as a shortened form of 'asphalt concrete' (therefore equivalent to the British 'asphalt' or 'tarmac'). In Australian English, bitumen is often used as the generic term for road surfaces. In Canadian English, the word bitumen is used to refer to the vast Canadian deposits of extremely heavy crude oil, while asphalt is used for the oil refinery product used to pave roads and manufacture roof shingles and various waterproofing products. Diluted bitumen (diluted with naphtha to make it flow in pipelines) is known as dilbit in the Canadian petroleum industry, while bitumen "upgraded" to synthetic crude oil is known as syncrude and syncrude blended with bitumen as synbit. Bitumen is still the preferred geological term for naturally occurring deposits of the solid or semi-solid form of petroleum. Bituminous rock is a form of sandstone impregnated with bitumen. The tar sands of Alberta, Canada are a similar material.
To what type of aggregate did asphalt used to refer?
mixture