Lithography has been refined to achieve ever smaller feature dimensions in semicomnductor manufacturing. The vast majority of lithography is based on the use of chemical "resists" which can be exposed using photon, electron, and ion beams.
Recent work with scanning probe microscopes have demonstrated a lithography procedure without a resist exposure step.
Originally fine grained stone, or slate was used to carve the plates on and in quarrying the stone many important fossils were discoverd, perhaps the best known of which is the first known bird Archaeopteryx Lithographica