What is difference between asphalt and bitumen?
In modern-day usage, they are in fact one and the same thing, even though technically they are not. Terminology also varies by country. In UK English, asphalt refers to a mixture of mineral aggregate and bitumen, but it is called tarmac in common parlance. But the word tar refers to a black viscous material obtained from the destructive distillation of coal, and is chemically distinct from bitumen. In US English, bitumen is called asphalt or asphalt cement in engineering jargon. In Australian English, bitumen is sometimes used as the generic term for road surfaces. In Canadian English, the word bitumen is used to refer to its vast deposits of extremely heavy crude oil, while asphalt is used for the oil refinery product used to pave roads and manufacture roof shingles. Diluted bitumen 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. Mastic asphalt is a type of asphalt wh