SYNGEN means permafrost.
Literally, the name "SYNGEN" is a shortened version of the word "syngenetic." Syngenetic is a term used by permafrost enthusiasts (and others who desperately need more friends) to describe an especially destructive kind of permafrost infamous for its unusually high frozen water content and its rather large deposits of clear ground ice and famous for the great Pleistocene mammals that it sometimes preserves.
To paraquote a famous permafrost pioneer (thanks again Eb, your memory lives on), when it comes to permafrost, there's bad permafrost and there's really bad permafrost.
Syngenetic permafrost is really bad permafrost.
As it happens, the geologic record of Interior Alaska yields clues to those whom are paying attention that the arid Fairbanks that we all know and love wasn't always so arid (and wasn't always so loveable). Evidence of long periods of warm, unusually wet summers along with our typical cold, cruel winters dot the historical landscape. During these periods, heavy rains washed waterlogged mudflows down from the hillsides and into the valley bottoms. These mudflows carried debris with them and occasionally caught the unsuspecting (or otherwise immobilized) wooly mammoth or steppe bison by surprise.
Mudflow or unwary mammal; in the path of successive mudflows, all were buried and encapsulated in frozen earth during the following winter. Successive wet summers, in turn, buried these and the cycle repeated itself, building up layer upon layer of ice and frozen mud, much like a layer cake (see photo below). This deep permafrost terrain would also ultimately give rise to bizarre ice formations like ice-lenses that range from just a few inches thick to wedges the size of automobiles and even larger.
Neat stuff, to be sure. But not so neat for the support of warm buildings and those who dwell within them.
While the majority of homes and other structures unwarily built over these deposits suffer expensive damage, some don't get off so easy.
