Difference between thermal and contact aureole
Contact aureole, thermal aureole and metamorphic aureole are all synonyms referring to the peripheral aureole of recrystallized rocks around an intrusion of an igneous body due to the heat flux between the intrusion and the box rock. 

You can read several examples quoting both terms as synonyms:

The Wikipedia article on metamorphic types includes a section heading of  


  "Contact (thermal)"


And another example is frontiersin.org where the subject regularly interchanges the terms to prevent monotony in the writing.