Apologies if this isn’t really a question for historians, but I’ve most often seen it in relation to historical excavations of structures that were at one point on the “surface”, so I thought this might be a good place to ask!
Over in archaeology-land, they call this 'site formation'. As always, if anyone wants to contribute further on how things get into the ground, please don't let this post stop you! More insight is always welcome.
While we wait for new stuff, OP, "How do cities get buried?" is a reasonably common archaeology question here, with a few previous answers you can read: